Kaitaia - Cape Rienga

The weather forecast had been bad for days yet somehow I'd managed to avoid getting caught in anything more than showers. Now I was in Kaitaia, a place where I had thought I'd need 3 days to go to the cape and back. With 110km from Kaitaia to Cape Rienga and no accommodation very close to the cape, I would ride 1 day to somewhere like Te Kao then complete a Te Kao to Cape Rienga return trip on day 2, then ride back to Kaitaia on day 3. This would be a fine plan in fine weather but not something I fancied in the predicted rain and thunderstorms.
Another option I started considering was a 110km ride to the Cape then attempt to hitch a lift (for both myself and the bike) with anybody that happened to be there.  Of course there's a massive flaw with this plan, what if you don't get a lift?  I could be soaked through without camping gear if I choose to ride light, and with a tent that I know has leaks if I take it.
This led me to start thinking of doing the ride in the reverse direction. It sort of messes up the continuity of the south to north trip, but I'd still have ridden it. Doing a drop off might be easier to organise and would certainly add a lot more certainty.  In Vietnam 10 years ago I wanted to ride from Hanoi down the length of the country but didn't want to ride the top half twice, so I bussed the bike from Vinh to Hanoi then rode back down, in essence it's the same thing. I enquired at the reception desk of the backpackers, interested in going the very next day (whilst the weather might still hold out for half a day meaning I'd only be drenched for half a day and arrive back here to a nice shower, dry clothes and a bed).  It turned out that there was another guest being dropped off at the cape the next day, leaving the hostel at 8:30. A quick phone call to the driver and it's locked in. Tomorrow morning I get a lift to the cape, then ride back to Kaitaia.
I go through what I might need and pack a bag with tools and repair items, waterproofs, polypro's - lest I need to sleep out for some reason, food and water with extras just in case. I can fit it all in one pannier, but two would balance the load (and look a lot better in the photo). I opt for the left rear pannier and the front day pack pannier. I'll ride with both on the rear but both bags can be mounted on the left side for the pic :-) of the bike with the lighthouse the fingerpost  and the endless blue of the sky, the Tasman and Pacific behind.  Brilliant!
At 8:30 the next morning a twin cab ute arrives, it's my ride, the bike lies flat in the back, I take the back seat where I can watch the bike and not feel like I'm stealing someone else's booking.  The driver explains how his power steering failed this morning but he's visited his normal mechanic and it's fixed. This instills confidence, not.
We head off, the drivers an old guy, a local from further up where we are headed, and talks continuously explaining the land the history, what's what & where and tells you every time you go past the last ______ (insert everything here). Last shop, last hotel, last golf course, last accommodation, last ...
As we approach the cape the land is covered in sea mist, at the Cape Rienga car park visibility is about 20 metres. We can see the path we need to take but everything is white, certainly no cliffs, rocks or lighthouse to be seen.
I've been told the land is sacred, so I walk with the bike down the path, a bend in the path appears in the whiteness, then another, i descend but still no sight of anything but the occasional tourist coming up the reverse direction. Finally the faint outline of a white building in the white mist, the Cape...
I lean my bike against the fingerpost and click a pic of them, I move back to get the pic I wanted with the lighthouse, fingerpost, bike and oceans. It's not quite how I pictured it...  Another couple snap a picture looking back toward the land, with the fingerpost in the foreground and lighthouse in the background the framing is much better, but their photo is missing the two oceans, the one thing that makes here different to everywhere else. Hmm... but then mine is missing the oceans too, I better get that shot, it'll be the one I keep and value more, because there's something to see in it.

Cape Rienga - NZ end to end (North)

Bluff - 5 weeks ago - NZ end to end (South)

The numbers of people start to increase a little, there's the Aussies from Napier (NZ), a couple from Darwin, we talk of it clearing, and for a moment you get a washed out sense of blue in a patch above you. 11 o'clock comes and goes and I know I have 5 to 6 hours riding in front of me. The rain doesn't matter anymore, when I get to the hostel It'll be finished, and the clothes can get washed and dried. It can dump on me as I ride back, but I'd prefer it didn't. I wait just a bit longer and as those fleeting blue glimpses disappear so do I. (At the hostel later in the night I talk to a couple who were there at 2pm, the mist never lifted - I'm glad I didn't wait hoping)
I've just seen my entire ride for the day from the car, I know the first 20km is hilly volcanic territory and that it turns to what all the motorist call flat afterwards. At 20km to Kaitaia  I meet another (UK) cyclist heading north, he's been told it's flat, I show him the profile on my phone and explain it undulates all the way until the hills really start, but the hills are not so steep to be a problem. As I always say, bike in 1st gear, brain in neutral and pedal.
On the northern outskirts of Kaitsia a yellow building appears. When I reach the big yellow Pak & Save supermarket I stop for supplies and a journey's end selfie. At Pak & Save Kaitaia, my two journeys meet.
Yesterday - 2100km from Bluff to Pak&Save going north
Today - 110km from Cape Rienga to Pak&Save going south
Journey complete.

Pak & Save Kaitaia - the true end of the NZ end to end

The rain that the MetService have been threatening me with for days and days just hasn't happened where I was. I hear Auckland and Coromandel have had flooding, and later on the rain arrives here. The next day I arrange my return to Auckland and Aus, clean my tent ready for AQIS and it stops raining just enough to make trips to the info centre and library.
The timing of the last little bit of my trip, the foregoing of the rest day when the weather didn't look quite as bad as they predicted all worked out. Yep, I paid for two rooms in Ohaeawai and Kaitaia for the same night but I wouldn't change a thing.
I stay yet one more day in Kaitaia as I can't get accommodation for Friday night, it continues to rain all day. As I write this in the hostel lounge, the thunder cracks outside. One more night here in Kaitaia then in the morning I bus back to Auckland, find a bike box and prepare for the flight home.