Day 6 - 8 Gold Rush City and finally a sunny beach day

The journey from Omana Regional Park to Thames was quite long at nearly 80 kilometers, but luckily it was very flat, so I made good progress. It was also advantageous to avoid the hot midday sun.

Unfortunately, the entire route had to be ridden on a highway, which had a high volume of traffic due to the long weekend, including oversized trucks that passed dangerously close to me. The warning from local cyclists was completely justified.

Now I'm stopping in Thames until Tuesday, as all the campsites on my possible routes are fully booked due to the mentioned holiday. A positive side effect is that this campsite has a fully equipped kitchen and a refrigerator, so I was finally able to have some 'real' food after 6 days!

During the gold rush period around 1880, Thames had over 20,000 residents, but today it has just under 7,000. You can see this transformation throughout the town, with some old hotels and facades still remaining from that time, but also streets where no one lives and that look very rundown. I took advantage of the sunny weekend to visit the gold mining museum and took a guided tour into a mine shaft.

There is a river very close to the campsite that the locals have dammed up at a cliff, creating a wonderful natural swimming spot. It was a fantastic experience!

Tomorrow I won't be going to Coromandel Town as planned. Some other cyclists advised against it because the highway on the steeper sections is very narrow, resulting in regular accidents involving cyclists. Instead, I will be riding the Hauraki Rail Trail, one of the approximately 20 developed cycling paths that the government has built in collaboration with conservation organizations. This will take me towards the Bay of Plenty. From Waihi, I intend to continue to Tauranga, the 'capital' of the Bay of Plenty.