Packed up the tents, said hello to the camp ducks, a quick chicken and waffles and coffee, and on our way! First stretch was classic New Zealand up and down and up and down. Then we got on a rail trail, which was a welcome change despite being up and up and up and up. Consistently slightly uphill beats inconsistently extremely uphill. A bit more mileage today (still not target tour distance), but I was happy to have kept pace without any surprises. I’m relatively untrained and don’t have a good sense of my capacity, so today felt like a notch on a proverbial belt. After the ride, Rick greeted us at our motel with chips and beer. He introduced us to his new fully packed bicycle named Cal 😍 We take a shuttle from KeriKeri to Cape Regina in the morning. In other words… We start the tour tomorrow! We’re exactly one week behind scehdule, but eh, close enough :) Bittersweet tonight, as we gave Louise our hugs and goodbyes. A gem of a person. We’ll see her somewhere down the road.