Otamarakau Beach

OTAMARAKAU BEACH (42km, 901km total) - I woke up this morning in a bare room on the second floor of Whakatane Hotel, surrounded by my gear and my bike.

Tonight I'm laying down to sleep on soft sands with a roof of stars over my head and waves singing me lullabies.

I paid $25 for the ugly room, tonight's accommodations are free. Weird, eh?

We spent a long time in Whakatane this morning.

We packed up and checked out pretty early, but then took our time with break fast and spent a long time at the I-site taking advantage of their free internet. What a luxury free wireless internet is! I got lucky and even got to skype with Carolyn. I don't envy the snow covering the midwest right now, not even a little bit. After doing what we needed to do online, se started the day with a little sightseeing ride down along the river towards the beach. There was a really cool statue of a young girl out on the rocks near the ocean.

Statue of a Girl

There was beautiful weather today and the road was flat. Of course, since the road was flat there was an ungodly amount of wind which, of course, was blowing right in our faces the entire time. It made for very slow and very annoying riding. Just when I would get up a little speed and start feeling good about myself, a fist of wind would hit me and my bike would stop dead in its tracks.

We finally did make it to our destination on the beach. We pulled in just after 4 and spent the rest of the day relaxing in the sand and the sun, busying ourselves with the beach's simple curiosities. Dinner came just before sunset and was a pasta dish with herring, cabbage, carrots, bell peppers, onion, and tomatoes. The herring was a little strong, but it was still pretty good. Tonight I've got my hammock set up on the sand, with my rain fly as a ground cloth. It's kind of a cool treeless variation. I just hope it doesn't rain... it shouldn't.

Otamarakau, New Zealand