Drove the 5 km into the main Bay of Islands town, PAIHIA (= here's a good place: named by the Rev Henry Williams, missionary and Treaty translator!). Now a busy resort, with plenty of motels, campsites and cafes. On our cycle tour, we took a passenger ferry across the Bay to camp in Russell (there is also a vehicle ferry).

Today, we needed a fill of diesel - motorists were complaining that fuel prices had just risen (again) by 4 cents a litre, making diesel 99 cents (just under 40 pence). They didn't believe that the price could be double in Britian! We continued on highway 11, a narrow road, twisting up and down the hills for 15 km to rejoin SH1 southwards at KAWAKAWA.

Another 54 km to Northland's biggest town, WHANGAREI (pop 47,000), at the head of Whangarei Harbour (another stage on our cycle tour, staying at the Kiwi Group HP). Entering the town, we made a short detour to the swollen Whangarei Falls though it was too wet for the circular walk. In the congested city centre, Barry circled (unable to park the motorhome) while Margaret collected her spectacles from the optician (or 'optometrist' - ordered at another branch in Kerikeri). They had put the lenses from her broken frame into a new, stronger one. Visit www.whangareinz.org.nz for more on the town, including the site of NZ's largest pa (Maori hill-fort).

Continuing south, we left the Northland region, turning off at RUAKAKA for lunch by the sand dunes, with a view across to Bream Head. The busy State Highway 1, which runs the length of North and South Island, is best avoided by cyclists whenever possible. On our cycle tour, we had turned off at WAIPU for a coastal loop via Mangawhai Heads, but today we drove straight down SH1, the road rising to almost 1,000 ft before BRYNDERWYN (where we'd turned west for Dargaville on our outward route). The next stretch, to WELLSFORD, is particularly narrow, hilly and dangerously busy with logging trucks. For tourist information on the whole of the Northland region, see www.northlandnz.com.

Through the Dome Forest to WARKWORTH, where we stopped to shop (the New World supermarket was packed, on a school-holiday Friday). See www.warkworth-information.co.nz for more on the town.

We finally reached the coast again at WAIWERA (= hot water) - a thermal spa, of course. The HP is right on the sea shore, next to the (expensive) hot pools. We got a sea-front pitch - 'absolute beach front' - with a nice view of sea birds and mud. We are 46 km north of Auckland Bridge and the resort proclaims itself '25 minutes from the City' - not in our motorhome!

Straight through Auckland to the Thames Estuary

A further 8 km down the Hibiscus Coast is OREWA, a resort with a couple of overpriced holiday parks. See www.orewa-beach.co.nz. It's presently the northern limit of the SH1A motorway to Auckland, which we joined a little further on at SILVERDALE. It was grey and drizzly, with 2 busy lanes of traffic in each direction, increasing to 3 lanes as the city hove into view across Auckland Harbour Bridge. (No pedestrians or cyclists allowed - they have to take a ferry - but no tolls to pay for us.) The distinctive skyline of yacht masts, backed by the office blocks of the Central Business District and dominated by the Sky City Tower, welcomed us back. It's very easy to slide through Auckland on the motorway, the SH1 south towards Hamilton - and almost impossible to traverse it by bicycle.

We left the motorway after MANUKAU, at PAPAKURA, and bought the 'Weekend Herald' (the 'NZ Herald' is Auckland's daily paper, sold throughout the upper half of North Island, and the Saturday edition provides a substantial weight of newsprint, crosswords and classifieds). We now turned east, joining the Pacific Coast Highway (90 km from Waiwera) at CLEVEDON to follow previous cycle routes to the Coromandel Peninsula. Lunch in the Community Hall car park, as there was no place to park by the historic wharf at McNicol Bridge, where pioneer settlers arrived by boat from Auckland.

Reaching the Pacific Coast at KAWAKAWA BAY, we were welcomed by a warning: 'Polluted water. Do not swim. Do not eat shellfish'. The road then climbed inland to 463 ft through Richardson and Te Morehu ScenicReserves (disappointing for cyclists that there's no way to stay at sea level). It drops down to ORERE, where there is a Top Ten HP at Orere Point - the site of our first meeting with German/Polish friends and fellow cyclists, Karsten and Agata, 3 years ago (we texted them the news to Oldenburg). Today we continued, climbing to over 300 ft again on the narrow quiet road before dropping to MATINGARAHI on the Firth of Thames, after which the road follows the level shore.

We stopped 50 km after Orere, at a simple Motor Camp at KAIAUA, a popular Maori fishing spot. Heavy rain set in, 5 inches falling during the night, with thunderstorms from Kaitaia to the Coromandel.

Overnight, our grassy pitch had become a boggy lake and the Maori campsite keeper had to tow us onto the gravel drive with his 4WD, recently bought for $NZ 800 (about £320)! Then a flat road along the Firth of Thames, the sea to our left and waterlogged fields of paddling cattle and soggy sheep to our right.

We soon came to the 'Seabird Coast Wildlife Refuge Reserve', with 'No Shooting' signs on the fences! The Miranda Naturalists Trust Centre - entry free, run by volunteers - provided a respite from the rain, with informative displays on the thousands of shorebirds wintering on this coast, many of them unique to NZ (such as the Wrybill and the NZ Dotterel), others migrating from the opposite hemisphere. The black swans we'd seen are not native, but have come over from Australia and settled!

After 11 km we passed the Miranda Hot Springs HP (with natural hot mineral pool and expensive camping), then met the busier road 25. Here, the twin-lane bridge over the river Waitakaruru had been damaged by a lorry, with one side closed and leaning into the water. Barry braved the downpour to photograph it, while Margaret spoke to a bloke working in a field: 'How long ago did that happen?' 'Too long', he replied, and carried on digging his ditch!

Another narrow bridge spanned the wider Waihou River, across to KOPU, where we turned left for Thames, Gateway to the Coromandel. (There are many canals and rivers draining the Hauraki Plain, none of which are called Thames on our map!)

THAMES (pop 10,000) is the largest town on the Coromandel Peninsula, and at the height of its gold boom (1880's) had more people than Auckland. The Goldfields Shopping Centre has all we need. The only caravan park, 3 km north of the town, is also a butterfly and orchid garden (admission extra). We have stayed twice before, when cycling the peninsula, but never followed the Rocky's Goldmine Trail (a 3-hr circular bush and hill walk) which starts at its gate. Nor did we today, as the heavy rain poured through the afternoon and evening, to the delight of the resident ducks and geese! Time to write (on laptop and postcards) and read (found A H Reed's splendid account of his walk 'From North Cape to 'Bluff' - 1,704 miles at the age of 87, averaging 15 miles a day, in the very different New Zealand of 1960).

More information on www.thames-info.co.nz.

July 18     20 km     WAIOMU BAY HP     ($NZ 20)

A good day's work on the web in Thames

Still pouring with rain, we drove the 3 km back into THAMES to catch up with emails, MMM reader enquiries and development of our website. It's more difficult (and more expensive) to find internet outlets in NZ, compared with the good, often free, provision in Australian libraries.

The choice in Thames was Central Backpackers (closed), the library (closed – to upgrade the computer facility!), a video store with a couple of machines in the window, or the Laundromat/internet/designer-clothes-and-crafts shop, Pohutakawa Design, on Pollen Street (which claims to be the country's longest straight shopping street). The latter was a surprisingly good place to work, with the computer corner run by the owner's very helpful son.  After adjourning to the motorhome for lunch, Barry returned for more internetting while Margaret shopped and got her mobile phone recharged at a Telstra store (free of charge).

It was 5 pm and dusk was falling by the time we left, so a short drive up the coast, past last night's campsite (too busy), to a simpler holiday park – mainly cabins, statics and a large hall for school groups. It was very quiet and we had the use of a comfortable TV lounge/library to ourselves. Margaret appreciated that, as Channel One is showing Jamie Oliver's School Dinners on Monday nights! An old TV is actually supplied in our 'Tui' motorhome, but the aerial is so useless that we rarely get a watchable picture.

July 19     100 km     COROMANDEL, Long Bay MC     ($NZ 24)

To Coromandel, Colville (the end of the bitumen) and return to Coromandel

With the weather still showery, we drove up the Pohutakawa Coast (the west coast of the Coromandel Peninsula, named after the trees which flower at Xmas in mid-summer). We have cycled this route twice before, as far as Coromandel Town, and well remembered the switchback road. It follows the shore through TAPU (with another motor camp) and on to the top of the Firth of Thames. Next it climbs to 573 ft, drops a little, then rises to 740 ft. The rest area at the summit, with a panorama of offshore islands, saw a gathering of cyclists getting their breath on our last visit (ourselves, Karsten and Agata, and a French family with dad towing their 2 youngsters in a trailer!)

We must have been too busy talking in various languages to notice the lone memorial cross to a 75-year old called Avis, placed in 1991. After dropping to sea level, there is still one last climb to nearly 600 ft before the final descent to COROMANDEL, Capital of the Peninsula, where the Lions Club greets visitors with the sign: 'We welcome careful drivers – we have 2 cemeteries and no hospital'! (They do have a doctor, but nearest hospital is in Thames.) It had certainly been a strenuous 39 km thus far, a road to take slowly whether driving or cycling!

We walked round the former timber and gold-mining (now fishing and tourist) town of about 1,500 souls. There are mussel and oyster farms in the bay, a Visitor Centre and plenty of accommodation, though the cycle shop had gone. More at www.coromandeltown.co.nz. In the past, we'd stayed at both the Coromandel HP and the YHA in the centre, and had cycled from here across to the east side of the peninsula - once on the sealed road to Te Rerenga and once on the gravel 309 road to Whitianga.

Today, we drove on northwards for 28 km to Colville, on an increasingly narrow and twisting road, past a series of holiday parks on this scenic coast. The first is a Top 10 HP at SHELLY BEACH after 5 km, another at OAMARU BAY 2 km further on, then 4 km over another headland to PAPA AROHA HP. The recent heavy rain had caused small landslips, with rocks and an uprooted tree in the road, and a bridge half-subsided into a stream. Luckily, the road was quiet! After AMODEO BAY, we climbed to 565 ft before dropping to COLVILLE, the end of the bitumen. (The 'Heritage Trail' continues round the top of the Peninsula to Port Jackson and Cape Colville, returning to Coromandel via Port Charles, but it is very rough and not suited to hired vehicles.) The Colville Bay Lodge and Motorcamp was closed, so we lunched by the shore, watching 3 barefoot shellfish-pickers at work, before turning back to COROMANDEL.

We drove 3 km west, past the wharf and fish factories to Long Bay, where the road ends at a little motor camp tucked between the shore and a kauri bush reserve. Very popular for those with fishing boats – we talked to a couple using their small motorhome to tow their boat up the ramp after an excursion to the nearby islands. Eunice, from Waitomo, was cooking a pair of lobsters in the camp kitchen, the result of her husband's diving (along with some scallops). Three other campers were filleting the Snapper they'd caught. We too have fish for dinner – frozen hoki fillets with garlic butter sauce (much easier to catch and cook!)