Electric bikes are for wimps.

Sunday 29th November - Cycling around Waiheke Island
The owners Charles and Nikki advertise they have electric, mountain and road bikes available so we opted to take the road bikes out for the day. Charles then revealed they hadn't been used for a year or two as he dug them out from an extremely disorganised and dirty area under their decking. Both Charles and Glenn then spent awhile on bike maintenance while Nikki hunted down some helmets. It was at this point Yvonne realised these weren't road bikes at all and were much more like the hybrids we have at home, unfortunately the electric bikes were reserved by other guests. Around 10ish we were off.

As we were using the same map as yesterday we had no clues to the hills that lay in wait for us throughout the whole day.....

First stop our local beach Onetangi and although a cloudy morning it looked a very nice place. Already there were people out swimming and kayaking. We cycled along the promenade and then our first climb hit us. Yvonne's first gear change resulted in the chain coming off, Glenn therefore getting oily hands early in the day.

We grunted up this (probably with Yvonne's chain coming off) to enjoy a free wheel down to Ostend before cycling across the causeway to Surfdale racking up another climb (probably with Yvonne's chain coming off) around the headland and along a dirt track to free wheel down to Blackpool. We stopped here to refuel and both fell asleep for a cat nap. 

On waking the sun was now out and it was getting hotter. We then had plenty of ups (with Yvonne's chain coming off) and downs to various headlands passing many of the famous vineyards that make the island a tourist attraction. 

We made our way along the northern part of the island to a popular destination, Oneroa. This had a very wide sandy beach that, because the sand was so dense, we were able to cycle along and was slightly busy with folks out for the day. Grabbing a gelato we prepared ourselves for the challenge of getting home without too many hills to grunt up or in Yvonne's case push the bike up.

Our final stop was at the headland above Onetangi beach, our original start, and our circuit of the north, south and west parts of the island was near an end. We finally free wheeled down to the main road and had a last 5 minute grunt up the track to the cabin and to the very end Yvonne's chain came off. The good thing is Yvonne is now capable of putting chains back on bikes.

The scenery we cycled around was simply stunning with rolling green hills, smattered with vineyards and olive groves and separated by wild rugged headlands interspersed with beautiful sandy bays. Very like a semi tropical Devon. 

At every stopping point the bird song was very prominent, with some comical tunes and noises coming from various trees but we never managed to see them.

When we left this morning it was very cloudy. On our return at 7pm we could feel our sunburnt faces begin to really glow.......

Just one of the many vineyards. 

Yvonne rounds a headland.

View

Oneroa Bay 

After the last big climb - hencee the smiles.