Thames Coast road

Day 148, Tuesday 16 January 2018.

I took a group of Auckland Ulyssians along the Thames Coast, which was severely battered by a storm at the beginning of the year, to see what progress was being made cleaning it up. The road is still a bit battered, and there are some stop/go areas with lengthy waits, but it isn’t particularly difficult riding. I noted that the houses on the water side of the road had piles of rubbish stacked in front of them as they got rid of water-damaged items.

On the way home I took the Kaiaua-Kawakawa Bay road as that area has also been affected by floods since I was last there a couple of weeks ago. Mostly the road is unchanged apart from the pong of rotting seaweed on the verges, but the part north of Kaiaua which was munted early last year has been badly damaged, with up to half the road having been washed away in places and the other half covered in mud slips in other places. It’s navigable, but will take a lot of effort to get back to a two-lane state.

Distance travelled: 293 km. Total distance so far: 19,792 km