Day 13

Rotorua to Taupo 83 km

It was a perfect day for cycling. The trip out of the pleasant but occasionally sulphuric Rotorua went through the Karangari forest plantation. Not quite the same thing as a forest in the way a lawn is not quite the same thing as grassland, but still very nice. After the turn off onto a quite side road it was idyllic: no wind, no clouds, about 70 degrees only the occasional truck. Not particularly scenic unless you like sheep in their paddocks but a fine day nonetheless. I did see what appeared to be a nuclear reactor tower out in the middle of nowhere. It seemed rather out of place amongst all the sheep. Eventually I passed by the access road to discover it was a timber drying kiln. Definitely the largest kiln I've every seen.

Anyway the cycling today was superb if a bit long. It seems that around 60 km is about right for me. By the 80th kilometer I was thinking about dinner. Speaking of food one rather surprising thing here in NZ is the exorbitant(from my experience)price of food. A powerade that would cost a dollar in the US is typically 4.00NZ, and I consume a lot of powerades. Nonetheless upon arriving in Taupo I decided some meat would be just the thing. Not that I was thinking about the cute little sheep grazing on the hill sides, but I stopped into a not particularly expensive looking restaurant and was shocked to find the lamb shanks were 27.50NZ. How in a country of 3 million people and 17 million sheep lambshanks could be 27.50 is beyond me. I went to the subway.