A Tandem Tour Around The Bay of Islands

It has been a while – in fact, a long time – since our last blog post. Put the gap down to a combination of communications fatigue following our big ride and, well, a lack of anything worth posting.

This week we ventured back onto the Angel Tandem for a rather different mini-adventure. It was simply four nights away on the tandem around our own backyard, the Bay of Islands. No pressure to promote a cause, post on social media, record videos or scramble another blog post off the press after a long day on the pedals. When we got to our destination, we simply chilled.

So how did I get the Rear Admiral back on the bike? Time is a great healer, and the memories of THAT RIDE had mostly faded by Christmas 2025. I tested the water with a suggestion of undertaking some shorter rides. Pack morning tea and head out to a local beach when the weather is going to make such a detour enjoyable. That worked, so I suggested a few weeks away on the bike, touring Northland. I got a sort of buy-in to that idea but not an enthusiastic one. About a month out, I suggested that we drop it to four days around the Bay of Islands with one day just lazing around in Russell. This time the response was very positive. That deep discount of 10 days swung the deal.

Pre-booking our accommodation was a must given the popularity of the Bay as a tourist destination. With another summer being plagued by a regular procession of pesky 1-in-100-year storms, there was a big weather risk, but we decided that short of flooded trails (a high probability), we would ride, rain or shine. It is summer, and even the rain seems a little warmer these days.

As we headed off down the drive on Monday, the sky was cloudless, the humidity low, and the temperatures pleasant. These are big factors for the RA. She was as happy as she could be on the tandem.

Unlike our big adventure last summer, we were not as bike fit when we started, and four days was hardly going to get our bodies into bike mode. We know from experience that Northland is one of the hilliest cycling areas in the country, and during our ride there were heaps of them. We had plenty of battery power, so I gave the RA a commitment that I would be generous with the pedal assist. She would hardly know that she was pedalling uphill!

On day 1 it was a 52 km dawdle through to Kaikohe via Puketi Forest. Our first 20 km was all uphill to a high point of 350 metres. Then a bit of gravel to get the bike and riders a bit dusty, and after lunch we joined the Pou Herenga Tai—Twin Coast Cycle Trail through to Kaikohe. Our two days on that trail would enable us to complete the whole trail on the tandem. We had ridden the section from Okaihau to Horeke on the very first day of our circumnavigation of Aotearoa.

Motel pillows can be challenging, and the GOTF awoke with a neck that did not want to cooperate with the messaging from the brain. It objected to being asked to move the head and chose to deliver considerable pain when instructed to do so.

It was a 62 km ride through to Russell. The first 35 km, to Kawakawa, were all downhill. It was pleasantly cool, and I was sure that I could hear the RA singing. During a delayed lunch at the Kawakawa railway station (they forgot our order), the RA had taken the opportunity to look at the profile of the rest of the day’s ride. There would be no singing from the back seat, more likely a little complaining about the terrain. The vocal cords were already getting exercised, so I needed to nip the budding mutiny. Fortunately, we had decided to leave Bob at home, so the potential for things to escalate was limited. “We will give the battery a real workout” seemed to help quell the concerns, but it hadn’t gone unnoticed that while waiting for our delayed lunch, the temperature had cranked up a few notches.

The rough gravel Whangae/Oromohoe Roads route was a pretty ( but awful) ride. Plenty of bush to shade the road, although designating Whangae as a road was pushing it a bit. We used battery assist levels that were only touched on the real tough stuff during last summer’s ride. Maybe this route was just really tough. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to less experienced riders, as there were a lot of opportunities for disaster on the steeply cambered corners. The roads seemed to be too rough for motorised traffic; we saw little, and there was minimal corrugation, further evidence of a lack of heavier vehicle use.

We awarded the trail the ‘squeeze gate champion of NZ’ due to the number of gates encountered. There are heaps of them, and as we have found on other trails, some seem to serve little purpose other than annoying old tandem riders. Lucky for us, with less in our panniers, we got through most of them trouble-free. Only had to remove the panniers at three of the gates.

An ice cream at Opua helped to reduce the body temperature, and then a cooling ride on the ferry before the last hilly push through to Russell. We were staying at the top of Flagstaff Hill; surely it must be close to challenging Baldwin Street in Dunedin. as the steepest. It certainly felt like it. The RA accused me of not using the pedal assist. I informed her that we were on Turbo, the highest setting. It was only when we rode down the hill that we really appreciated the gradient. Why do hills always look steeper when you are descending?

The RA enjoyed her R&R day in Russell. She browsed the shops, we had a slow lunch at Hone’s Garden and then enjoyed a swim at Long Beach.

The ride back was uneventful. An hour had us in Pahia via Opua. After morning tea we climbed away from the coast up to Waimate North before cruising back into Kerikeri by early afternoon.

The verdict. One of the more enjoyable rides we have undertaken in New Zealand. It is a pity that the section around the Bay and through to Kerikeri is not a little more cyclist-friendly so that more people could enjoy it. For us, the cars on the section from Opua to Puketona did not particularly bother us; I am more concerned about the potential for disaster when hurtling along the road at 100 kph in a car (tin can). The impact of hitting another car or a stationary object at that speed is more life-threatening.

The bike was cleaned up, and our dusty gear was washed. The RA commented that maybe we need to keep riding on a regular basis. Our mini-tour must have been a success!