Day 10: I left Kaitaia and it was fairly warm outside. I knew it would be an easy day because I had fairly strong tail winds and the first half of my 110km trip was fairly flat. I stopped off at a Kauri wood shop that had a staircase carved into a tree trunk which was pretty cool, other than that it wasn't too exciting. There was a lot of cool scenery along the way, I was pretty much following the coast but would go inland a lot. After 90km I hit a gravel road that took me the last 20km to Cape Reinga. It was a tough 20km because of the steep hills leading to the top and the gravel didn't help but it was worth it. Cape Reinga isn't technically the northern most part of NZ but it is where the Tasmanian Sea and the Pacific Ocean meet in an epic clash of the titans. I made camp about 5km away down by the ocean which was also really pretty.
Day 11: Getting down to the campsite involved me holding my brakes as hard as I could as I plunged straight down a winding gravel road hoping I wouldn't crash and die. I was a little concerned about getting back up so I asked a DoC worker if he would bring me back up the hill in his truck so he did. He ended up dropping me off at the start of the gravel road which was really nice because riding through that is no fun on a bike. Also, the strong winds from the south were still blowing strong so there was a crazy amount of headwinds and it was pretty chilly. I was also noticably fatigued from riding the day before. That did not make for a fun day of riding, however I still did 70km even though I wanted to wuss out much earlier. Since there's only one road going up to Cape Reinga, I had to backtrack so I didn't see anything I hadn't already seen, but there were still a lot of nice things to see, including a herd of cows walking through the road and a lot of wild turkeys.
Day 12: After the first 32km I was no longer backtracking and started making my way to the Bay of Islands. I spent the afternoon by the Doubtless bay and camped at Hihi beach holiday park . It was another day with cold headwinds but I pushed through it and did 80km. I wasted a few kms trying to find hostels that didn't exist plus one hostel that was on top of a steep hill that ended up being way too expensive which made me sad because it took me a while to get up there :(. In the ended I just decided to go 6km off the highway to camp at Hihi and it was pretty nice except that there was no one running the office when I got there and they yelled at me in the morning because I went to leave since there was no one there. However, the owners just got home and lived next door and didn't bother to come over or anything, meh.
Day 13: I slept for 12 hours! Too much sleep and my legs are really stiff. It gets dark around 6:30 so when I camp I go to bed early and it is really cold in the morning so I have a hard time waking up. I struggled to even go up small hills so I walked a lot and did a short day of 60km. I was hoping to be at the Bay of Islands at Paihia, but I will be able to get there early tomorrow since I'm only 20km away. This place is pretty cheap and has free internet so it's all good.
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