Waiting out the rain

I am sitting tight in Ohope NZ hoping for the rain to go away that has plagued me since I arrived in New Zealand. I am tired of riding and camping in the rain. Today it has been periods of some filtered sun mixed with rain falling from light sprinkles to heavy downpours with thunder and lightning. I have spent my time catching up on my internet stuff, uploading pics and talking to fellow campers. Most of the campers are Kiwis but almost half are from overseas like England, Germany and Australia. There are some others mixed in. I met a Czech couple, a Japanese woman, a French man and a few from Canada and the States.

I went for a short ride to the end of the peninsula today to look at the mouth of the bay. I could see Opotiki, my next city, on the other side of the water but it is a 25 mile ride to get there for me. When this rain stops I will head there. There was a nice golf course at the end of the peninsula and I stopped in at the club house for a cup of tea. The staff was bored because the rain was keeping sane people away, only a crazy biker rides up in pouring rain for a cup of tea. We had a good time chatting for about 45 minutes while I waited for the downpour to lighten up a bit. It did not let up so I just rode back to the camp in the rain and got soaked once again.

I am thinking about taking a bus out to the tip of East Cape because the heavy rains combined with dirt and gravel roads sounds like a bad combo to me. It is also about 250 miles to go around the Cape and that many miles of gravel make my teeth hurt just thinking about it. Cutting it in half sounds more doable to me. A bus from Opotiki to the tip is $40 which is a deal compared to riding 125 miles on narrow winding mountainous gravel roads right after a big rain storm. I will decide when the time comes. My other option is to ride over the mountains straight down to Osborne cutting the East Cape out completely. I would like to see the Cape so I need to mull over this for a few hours.