Te Aroha to Okaiua

Our day off yesterday was spent looking outside the window of our cabin we rented for the night. It rained all day and we felt like zombies wandering through a deserted campsite. Luckily, Ella provides for plenty of fun.

Today we were going to get closer to Rotorua, even if that moment getting wet, and it looked like bad weather again so we left with a very heavy soul. There were clouds everywhere and you could see rain thrashing down in the west over the plains and in the east on the mountains. It did not look too good...

We agreed we were going to cycle only in the morning in order to avoid the risk of getting soaked so our next destination was Okaiua, not a village but a campsite near hot springs.

We initially were going to take the "Gordon road" but it was right at the foot of the mountain and we could see how the rain was coming down there heavily. We decided on another road, parallel to this one and that decision kept us dry. Rain everywhere except where we cycled, can you believe it?

We could have cycled more because we arrived very early at the campsite but we were not going to challenge the weather for much longer. We checked in, had a visit from Luke, Nina and Ellis and for the rest of the day, we watched the rain fall down very, very heavily. A good thing we called it a day.