Wednesday January 29, 2014

We are now definitely back on the North Island!!  The people in the north seem to be a lot friendlier and helpful.  Every time we stopped to look at the map or just to look at the scenery, someone would stop and ask us if we needed help, where were we going did we know the way etc.

Yesterday on the way back from the car museum, Ralf had found a cycle trail which took us out of Paraparumu on a safe and scenic trail to State Highway 1.  When we got to the point that he had joined it we noticed that it appeared to carry on away from the Highway but in the direction that we were headed.  An older cyclist on a steel frame road bike approached us, (his sister lives in London Ontario)  he directed us along the Kipiti Coastal Cycle Trail which kept us of the Highway for about 20 kms.

When we got to a park and wasn’t sure which way to go an older woman who was obviously a school teacher before she retired put us on the right path again.  Now you are asking why I thought she was a school teacher. Well, I have been making an appalling job of pronouncing these Kiwi place names.  She corrected me and told me that the words are broken up at the end of each consonant Paraparaumu becomes Par–apar–aum-u not Para-para-umu.  She then pointed to another Town on the map and told me to pronounce the Town.  Had to be an old school marm.

At some point we knew we had to join State Highway 1 again, but we kept trying to find more coastal routes which unfortunately added about 10 kms to our day.  It was a nice route.

We stopped at Otaki for lunch, this should have been 22 kms from Paraparaumu, but because of our diversions we had cycled 37 kms.  Scenic routes are always longer.  Otaki is a small Town that has numerous ‘outlet stores’  including one for IceBreaker merino wool clothing.  Most of the clothes we have with us are IceBreaker merino wool.  However, the clothes we bought in Canada were actually cheaper than in NZ, figure that one out.  Although I must say we bought all of our clothes from Sojourn and they were on sale.

Due to our scenic start of the day we arrived at the Town of Foxton after the iSite had closed (4:00 pm).  We found the campsite in Foxton Beach and were told about the Giant catamaran that is being launched tomorrow.  We will go down to the dock and see the Giant catamaran before we leave tomorrow and have a little wander around the Town which has a giant windmill. I spotted it first.

The area was settled by Dutch people and that is why there is a giant windmill in the centre of Town.