November 13th – Tourist in Auckland

Today I woke up quite early and headed off to have breakfast, then back at 10am for the riders meeting. It was great to see Sue, Wali, Michelle, Tony, Chris and Linda again, plus meet the other riders whose names I will get to know.

I am not sure that I have trained enough and am feeling fat, so the prospect of continuous days riding in NZ is a bit daunting. Also it looks like the weather may not be great. On the plus side for the first five nights we have hot pools each night, and there are only three riding days till the first rest day.

Our first three days of riding

Tomorrow we have the joys of navigating our way out of Auckland to look forward to, with turns every kilometre or less. At least the traffic will mostly be coming into Auckland not going out.

The whiteboard instructions for leaving Auckland

Tomorrow we are staying in Miranda at the hot springs and we go past a fresh oyster shop (yum) on the way.

I went to a really nice restaurant called The Depot for lunch with Brett, Michelle and Tony, and we shared a range of small plates. The food was really good. So good that when we met up as a group for dinner and Sue really wanted to go to The Depot we happily went again.

Lunch with Michelle and Tony and Brett at The Depot

This afternoon we went up the Sky Tower and watched a brave – or crazy! – young guy do the SkyJump! You free fall until just about at the end – 192 metres! Not for me.

The Sky City Tower at 328 metres tall it is the tallest man-made structure in the Southern Hemisphere, and 25th tallest tower in the world.

View from Sky Tower – Auckland with Rangitoto Island in the background

Now I am sorting out my bags, trying to work out what I can do without until the rest day – not much and I am trying to make sure I can still fit my pillow in. Then it will be an early night as we have a 6am start to get up and out of here.