Day 21: Taupo to Rotorua

                As we near the end of this epic and I think more and more of home, I am finding it ever harder to get into the mindset to jump on the bike and peddle to the next destination. The one thing that gets me back on the bike, besides not really having anyway else to get to Auckland, is that when I get home and look back later in life I want to say I cycled up New Zealand not three quarters of this beautiful nation. I know this is not the greatest reason but at this point anything that gets me into that saddle and past the first 10km is worth it.

                Today we were headed for another lakeside town called Rotorua. Rotorua is known as the mountain biking capital of NZ and is home to some of the best trails in the world. The road to Rotorua from Taupo was another fairly simple one with only 400m of vertical climb. Despite another day of bleak weather forecasts, the weather seemed to holding off and we were making great time through the valley. As we get further away from Taupo and closer to Rotorua you begin to see, and smell, more evidence of the heavy geothermal activity in this region. Out in the middle of a giant field you could see this gigantic concrete tower like those from the nuclear power plants. Not exactly sure of what it was until we got closer and could smell the distinctly egg fart smell of the sulphides from the geothermal wells, we found out it was large kiln powered by the geothermal wells. The further we got the more intense the small, it was like biking through a giant cloud of fart that was almost palpable. About 30km outside our destination, Brian had read about some free geothermal pools with a river flowing through them. Despite some slight hesitation on my part, mostly due to already being warm from biking and worried we would spend too long in the pools and the weather would decide to open up on us, we made the turn off and were soon slowly dipping in to the hot smelly waters. Having the stream running through the pools was a really cool addition as you were able to choose how hot you wanted the water based on your position relative to the stream. Spending a little too much time in the water, we dried ourselves off and got our now tired and relaxed bodies back on the bikes. Climbing up our last hills of the day we were regretting the hot pools but how often do you get the chance to jump in some natural hot water stream.

                Rolling into Rotorua, Mother Nature gave us a little drizzle to remind us who was in charge. Like the rest of the area around this region, it smells like dirty egg farts in Rotorua due to the geothermal activity. When we got to our stay in town we were greeted to a really neat little night market right at our door. I was going to like this place. This is where you find us now enjoying a nice dinner of sausages and fried potatoes. Day 21, 86km and who cut the cheese.