A walk in the Park - Tour Aotearoa

1st March - Day 8

I slept really well, and woke around 5am to finish typing up yesterday's blog. When it was light I cleaned my bike and gear. My cue sheets had gotten wet, and I had to lay them all out to dry.

I was still a bit swollen from the wasp stings, and my hands, arms and legs were sore and itchy.
Greg got up, and began to sort his gear out too. He discovered that his Spot tracker had fallen off somewhere along the Timber Trail, as had his light.  Then when Greg washed his bike he found that his crank was so loose it came off in his hand!

We had breakfast made by our host, Rem, while our clothes were washing and drying. There were even soft seats to sit on. Such luxury!

After sorting everything out, and feeling refreshed and clean again, we headed out towards Taumaranui. The route followed a gravel road, and we passed some roadworks. A little way on, there was a new tunnel being built under the railway line, and Greg rode through. I followed him, only to discover that the gravel at the other side had a gap of about 30 centimetres! I hit it awkwardly, and it was only luck that saved me from doing an endo!

We reached Taumaranui and went to the supermarket for supplies, then to a cafe for more food before heading out of town.

The road began climbing almost right away, and became gravel. Greg's crank came loose twice, and his rack was sagging down too. He had bought some nuts and bolts to help tighten his rack, so we stopped on the side of the road to fix it.  He borrowed my multi-tool, but couldn't get the locking nut tight enough so he gave up.

After much climbing, the road finally began to descend. At one point I saw a kaka flying into the bush, and Greg pointed out a wild goat.  After about 95 km of riding we finally reached the Blue Duck Cafe. There were about 30 people outside, obviously on a tour of some sort.  When we went inside, an incredibly grumpy and rude waitress told us that no, they had no food, no beds, not even bread, good bye. I asked to use a tap to clean my filter, and she grudgingly said I could use the one outside. I tried cleaning my water filter, but i was so put off by the rude waitress that I couldn't figure it out.  As we were deciding what to do next, Katie rode up. She was faced with the same grumpy waitress, and thought she was quite rude too.

We were supposed to call the jet boat people from the cafe, so I asked to use the phone. No luck there either...the people who were outside were busy ordering their food (!) and we would have to wait until they were finished.  Thoroughly peeved off at the Blue Duck people, we left, deciding to call the jet boat operator from the top as apparently you can get cellphone coverage there.

We had been warned about the bad state of the Kaiwhakauka track. It was incredibly muddy, not helped by the fact that it had started to rain again.

Along the way, we made a plan to ride in to a shelter about 13 km in, cook a meal, and then walk in the dark up the last 5 km to the Mangapurua trig, camp up there and book out jet boat, then ride down to the Bridge to Nowhere and the jet-boat pickup in the morning.

We pushed on in the rain towards the shelter.,Greg's rack had sagged again, so he fell back while Katie and I continued. Katie was riding ahead, on narrow muddy singletrack along the side of a steep hill when suddenly her bike slid sideways. Her bike hit the ground, but she kept going, doing a complete flip and ending up disappearing head-first down a bank!

It was a spectacular sight, her legs in the air as she disappeared into the bush. I was dreading what injuries she might have as I jumped off my bike and climbed down to her -- she had fallen a couple of metres and fortunately had caught hold of a branch to stop herself falling further. I helped haul her back up to the track. Fortunately she wasn't injured, except for a squashed banana and roll. After that, we decided to walk more -- not that we had much choice in the terrible mud and rain.

We finally reached the shelter at dusk, and began to prepare a meal. It was then that I discovered that I had lost my tool bag -- my cycle multi-tool, picture repair kit and the special valve tool that Bennie had ordered for me were all gone. Worst was that I had lost the wonderful little Leatherman tool that Ruth had given me  I was quite upset about that, though I can replace the missing tools in Wanganui. I mustn't have put the bag back after Greg used my multi-tool to try and fix his darned rack.

After dinner, we began the walk up to the trig. It was too steep and dark and muddy to risk riding, so we walked the whole way. It took a couple of hours to reach the top, by which time the rain had finally stopped.

At one point, we saw what looked like lights in the distance. They were actually the eyes of a flock of sheep reflecting our bike lights back at us!

It was approaching midnight by the time we reached the top. Katie pointed out that we had better get there soon, or we'd hit the 6-hour compulsory stop time. I never dreamed that would be an issue, but we reached that limit., getting to the campsite just in time.

At the camping area, we tried phoning the jet-boat operator, even though it was nearly midnight. Unfortunately the only phone that could get service was Greg's, and the only number we had for the jet-boat people was an 0800 number -- which you can't call from a US-based cellphone. We then tried phoning the operator, who said we'd have to use a different phone. We explained that we were on top of a mountain and this was the only working phone, so the operator did a Google search for us, and found a landline number. Of course there was nobody there, so we left a message. We just hope it means we'll get a seat on the boat tomorrow.

Katie's bivvy

We then set up our tents and went to bed. The inside of my tent was quite wet from the rain, but I got set up well enough. At least I'm warm.

We had covered 107 km and climbed about 1,400 metres. Lying in my tent, I could hear the occasional kiwi in the bush. It's an amazing place to be, despite all the rain and mud.

A lost mascot of another TA rider