Every New Zealander knows the slogan: L&P, World Famous in New Zealand. The soft drink, originally Lemon and Paeroa, was made with mineral water from a spring near this small Hauraki Plains town, and Paeroa has never let anyone forget it. A giant L&P bottle stands by the main road, and you will probably stop for the photo. Nobody will blame you.
Beyond the bottle, Paeroa is a modest farming town on the Ohinemuri River, with a main street of antique shops, cafés and the usual services, and it makes a useful fuel stop before the next stretch. For riders, the real attraction lies just east of town, where State Highway 2 enters the Karangahake Gorge. The road follows the Ohinemuri River through a narrow, steep-sided gorge lined with native bush, with tight bends and the river tumbling over rocks below. It is short but sweet, and it can be busy with trucks and tourists, so pick your moment.
The gorge has a rich gold mining history. In the late nineteenth century, it was a busy mining district, with stamper batteries, tramways and tunnels, and the ruins are still visible along the river. The old railway line through the gorge is now part of the Hauraki Rail Trail, popular with cyclists and walkers, and there are short walks through old tunnels and past mining relics. At the eastern end of the gorge, Waihi has a huge open-pit gold mine right next to the town centre, which you can look into from a viewing platform.
The plains around Paeroa are flat, fertile and green, drained from swamp for dairy farming in the early twentieth century. The roads across them are straight and can be windy, with long views of the Coromandel Range to the north and the Kaimai Range to the south. Fuel and food are easy to find in Paeroa, and Thames, gateway to the Coromandel Peninsula, is about half an hour away.