OK, so my post titles are a bit weird, but I wanted to write down a bit for each day in order. Although I am now in Thames (have already been up to the Coromandel) I will write about the third day of our bike trek from Gisborne to Rotorua.

We started off in the morning at around 9:15am, I had to turn back after a few hundred metres as I felt a poo coming. I failed to mention in my last post how "interesting" the toilets and showers were at Mel's Place in Hicks Bay. They had a small-drop septic toilet which didn't shut properly, however it did have a little window you could peep through out to the ocean. Underneath was the writing "Where else in the world can you do 'this' and have a view like 'this'". Funny! (but smelly). The shower was equally interesting - to get hot water you had to turn on the big LPG Gas bottle outside, then flick a few switches to get the water to come on. Luckily the shower door was able to be shut by hooking an elastic band around a nail on the inside of the door.

So after my bowel relief I caught up with Ed and continued on with our journey. I told Ed that today was going to be easy, as it was mostly flat once we got through the first few hills. We had 155km to travel that day, so we were happy that it was going to be an easy ride. Unfortunately I was wrong :) It was up and down hills all day. Although that part of the trip contained the most beautiful beaches, we were so damn busy riding our bikes that we didn't get a chance to hop into the water. It wasn't until the last 15km into Opotiki did it start to flatten out.

Once we rode down the last hill and looked over the flat country into Opotiki, I caught up to Ed and flew past him, yelling out "Last guy there buys the beers". Ed was taking it less serious as me, as he probably predicted that there were no pubs open when we got there. It was a ghost town and NOTHING was open. As we arrived late that night (about 8:15pm) the lady at the backpackers where we had booked had given our beds to someone else. Luckily, across the road was a dingy old pub with rooms upstairs. There was only one room left, and they didn't normally let it out to people because it was unable to be locked. We didn't care so we paid our money, had dinner and got an early nights rest.

Our final day of the "Adam & Ed's Gisborne to Rotorua Bicycle Tour" was probably our easiest. We only had 135km to travel, and most of it was flat, except for a few long climbs towards Rotorua. We stopped at Lake Rotoma (around the 100km mark) and had a quick "swim" in the water. I only put my legs in and I was a pansy and thought the water was cold. It was quite relaxing to walk on the pebble/stong beach as it was like a professional massage for my tired feet.

Not much else to say, except as we rode in Rotorua, I actally enjoyed smelling the stinky sulphur, as it meant I would get to see Nee and Ellianah again. I raced ahead of Ed averaging about 30km/hr into the heart of Rotorua. After getting directions from a local Maori boy, I found the house and much to my disappointment Nee had not yet arrived - found out later she was shopping!! Typical!! (Thought it was food shopping and I glad she thought of my wellbeing at the time)

I left Ed to his own devices to find the message in his phone with the address. Luckily the boy is bright and about 20mins later we saw Ed ride into the yard. In Rotorua we stayed for 3 nights with a nice guy rom the Hospitality Club named Antoine, who was looking after his friend's (Ra) house.

That's the end of my novel, have to go and do other things now. On a side note, my digital camera is busted and am looking for a replacement before we leave to go to Tonga. Will update you all on more stuff next time I am close to a computer. Take care!!