New Zealand - Day 3

Tail wind? What tail wind??
Today dawned bright and sunny and after a very good muesli/coffee breakfast we headed around to the Takaro Trails office just around the corner to collect the bikes and instructions etc. Got away by 9.30 and headed down the seafront bike path to the town centre of Napier for a wander around the art deco city.  Much has been done to the seafront and town centre since we were last here in 2008. Bit of souvenir shopping and on our way.
Bike path all the way as we headed south straight into a pretty fierce south-westerly wind which just got stronger as the day went on. Not too bad but some gusts towards the end of the day did push us around a bit. Quite cool so we did not remove any of the warm clothing for the whole day.
Mainly followed the coastline past beaches and wetlands teeming with birdlife of all shapes and sizes including swans and geese and many types of finches. Most of the ride was on top of huge levee banks built to contain the rivers but that meant we were quite high and exposed to that lovely breeze.
Reached little village of Te Awanga where we could have had lunch at the posh Clearview Estate winery but opted instead for a little roadside fish and chip shop where we had the biggest oysters we've ever seen and beautiful crumbed fish and chips. Had a great chat with some locals who let us know about the crazy political events back home. Unbelievable.
Had a really hard push for about 12k back into Havelock North where we are staying at St Andrews retreat which is a  beautifully peaceful B&B on about 20 acres of landscaped gardens. Quite stunning.
Off to town for dinner. Ate at a place called Maine which Jenny from Takaro had booked for us. Seeing as we had spent a fair bit of the day riding beside apple orchards we had cider instead of wine and it was beautiful. Came and went from here by taxi but we've never seen taxi metres click over so fast! About 10cents per second we reckon! Lovely meal though. Pretty good first day which would have been better without the 20k plus wind but very beautiful ride nevertheless.