We left
Taumaranui determined to stay on tarmac for a while, after some frustrating
long hard days with not much distance. We started the day with a long gradual
climb up to the top of the national park. I was excited about this especially
because it was the mountain that starred in the finale of Lord of the Rings.
The scenery didn’t disappoint, with volcanos peering out of sprawling forests.
The terrain was hard though, with steep winding hills. We passed several towns
which wouldn’t have looked out of place in the wild west, and in one a couple
waved us over. They were American and had been cycle touring for 15 years,
paying their way by playing music. This started to ring some bells for me as
I’d recently read Mark Beaumont’s book “The Man Who Cycled the Americas”. Mark
Beaumont had met this very same couple on his trip and they’d sung him a song.
This stuck in my head because Mark B was absolutely horrible about this couple
– he said they couldn’t sing in tune despite 15 years of practise. At the time
I was seriously worried that the couple would have read his book. Surely they
would have? Anyway they haven’t, and they didn’t ask for any information about
us so I feel okay writing this. After we talked for a while we went back to
their campsite so they could sing to us. It was pretty funny. Tom and Mum and I
tried desperately not to look at each other. After this interlude we continued
until we got a waterfall and camped there. The waterfall had been highly
advertised but was absolutely rubbish – it turns out they’d been a landslide
which had halved the size of it.
In the
morning we thought we had an easy ride to the nearby town of Wanganui. This was
not to be the case as the howling headwind returned and the hills kicked up. We
also had run out of food. This shouldn’t have been a problem but it was because
the riding was so hard. It’s a problem we’ve faced a few times – you need to
ride to get food but you can’t ride without food. There’s no way through except
to push on, which we did until we hit a supermarket on the outskirts of town.
Phew. We had a relaxed afternoon in the sunshine for once, and then went out for pizza.
In the morning we had a gorgeous ride over to the east coast. At one point we were stopped by a farmer who needed some help starting his car. In return he invited us in for tea and cheese and crackers. He was a 5th generation farmer and very interesting to talk to. We rode through the gorge to avoid the mountains. This was GORGEous.
By this point we were approaching Wellington. Our dream was to cycle in over the rail trail but the weather was against us. Pouring rain and howling winds made cycling over the top of the mountain unappealing. In fact we couldn't even see the top of the mountain. We chickened out and got the commuter train over the mountain. On my birthday we had a lovely 18 kilometre cycle into Wellington town for birthday celebrations. I definitely made up for months of no nights out, ending up with a 4 AM fight in burger king (that guy was not dutch).... The next day, the south island beckons.
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