We left Nelson and headed to Kaiteriteri. It was a cute little town on the waterfront. We went to a small lodge where they rented mountain bikes. We hired two downhill bikes and helmets for a half day and road right from the lodge to the trails. We went up to one of the spots where a few trails branched out and then went uphill on an intermediate trail. Going up the tight corners was challenging for me being a beginner. We decided to just go back down the same way instead of going off on a more difficult trail. Going down turned out to be even harder. Ryan was trying to help but I wasn't quite comfortable yet.
Once we were back at the very bottom, we went on one of the green beginner trails which was much better and more fun for me. It had pretty gradual ups and downs and some tighter corners. We had a tough time trying to figure out all the routes because sometimes the trails were miss marked and didn't match up to what was on the map that we had. We went down a few more beginner trails and then down a connecting intermediate one. This had steeper downhills and even tighter corners with bigger berms. It was challenging but actually more fun than the other trails and I didn't die so that's a plus.
Ryan left to bike trails more on his skill level while I stayed down on the ones we already did. Around our cut off time, I headed back to the lodge and returned the bike. A little bit later, Ryan came down too. We went back to the car and got some of our food to take to the beach. We found a picnic table and ate salami, cheese, and crackers (like we do everyday) while fighting off the begging seagulls.
By then it was getting late so we headed to Marahau. On the way, we stopped at a small ice cream stand that also sold fresh local produce. We got two real fruit ice cream cones and they were delicious. We made it to Marahau and stayed at The Barn holiday park. We cooked up lamb for dinner, showered, then went to bed.
