Tap, tap, tap, tap. It was the rain hammering down on the roof of our cabin. It was pretty intense when I woke up multiple times in the night. Shit. We don’t want rain!!!

With only 50km it was a late start for us. And even later when we realised the rain wasn’t going anywhere, even when we sat looking at it with a pout.

Eventually we sucked it up, rain coats on and braved the elements.

Within 30 seconds my shoes were full and squelching with each peddle stroke. It was so miserable. We had both front and rear lights on, hoods pulled up over our helmets and sunglasses on to act as a rain visor.

We had 5 climbs on the ride, and before we knew it, we were into climb number 1.

With glasses steaming up, my windscreen wipers AKA a quick swipe of the finger on the inside and outside of the lens gave me some vision again.

Thankfully, we had a bit of a push with a tail wind, and before we knew it we were at Charleston where there was a cafe. With the rain still hammering down, we decided to not stop and just crack on.

35km in we made it to Fox River, where google had told us there was another cafe that would be open from 10. Good job we got there at 11:30…. To find it still closed.

After a quick photo op of the really full river, we carried on.

Before we knew it, we had cycled into blue skies and a head wind, but no rain was lovely.

Up the ‘big hill’ for the day, I was dropping James, when all of a sudden ‘PINGGGGGG’ I had snapped a spoke. Clearly putting out too many watts. Thankfully it had snapped and not wiped out the derailleur in the process, so James could just wrap it around another spoke and we could carry on.

With one more climb, we made it to Punakaiki, where there was a pub. We knew food options were limited so decided to stop for a decent feed for lunch with the plan of having a sandwich for dinner.

$74 later (gulp!) we had one eggs bene, and one open sandwich (and there may have been a slice of cheesecake, just because) we sat outside and enjoyed the sunshine and dry off a bit. Sitting down, I decided to take my squelchy shoes off. Only to have to pour the water out of my shoes and the water then dripping off my socks.

We couldn’t sit in the pub all afternoon, so had to get back on our bikes and climb the short hill up to Pancake rocks, then down the other side to our accommodation for the night.

We get to Pancake rocks, to find a second cafe, so in the theme of this trip, we of course had to stop again (at this point we’d only biked 4 minutes…!) we patted a dog, had a coffee and then decided to take a little walk out to the blow holes, not realising that it was low tide and we wouldn’t be seeing any ‘explosive water’. Stopping for some pictures, it was a bit windy and James’ bike blew over in the wind and slightly bent the derailleur, oops.

Back on the bikes for another 2 minutes, we made it to our accommodation for the night, a lovely cabin, overlooking some native bush. With the sound of waves crashing behind us, and birds tweeting in front it was heavenly.

After a few hours lazing, turning the bathroom into a sauna to try to dry out our stinking wet kit, and fixing mildly sad bike bits, we decided against the planned sandwich for dinner and instead head out to collect a pizza from the cafe up the road.

Then, the perfect evening. Pizza, darts, and a huge cycle planned for the next day. Awesome!

With an early start planned, it was time to head to bed.

Day 8 completed.

It’s good to be adventuring again!