We had a leisurely start, as Pete was going to join us in Masterton at mid-day, but then we got a text that Fern, his daughter, was sick and he couldn't come. It was still good having a late start, as we needed the rest.
My foot was still quite sore from standing on the tent-peg, and I had a big blood blister. I used my needle to puncture and drain it, which did help. I was no longer limping but it was still quite sore.
We rode back into town for the photo stop, and then bought breakfast from the four-square. I had a gigantic sausage, a muffin, a pie, and a container of Up&Go.
We left Eketahuna at around 9, and made good progress in a tail wind to Masterton. There were only a few rolling hills, and absolutely no traffic.
We arrived in Masterton at about 11, and ate a second breakfast at a cafe. I had two milkshakes and a burger.
Given our good progress and the favourable winds, I began to think that we might be able to make it to Wellington in one day. There was a long and relatively flat section though the Wairarapa, and then a harder section with about 400 metres of climbing on the Rimutaka Incline track to Upper Hutt, and then another 20 km of flat riding to Petone, where Pete lives.
We rode on, along smooth sealed roads and gentle hills, and made good progress at first. But then the winds shifted to a cross-wind and then a slight headwind, and our goal of reaching Wellington became less likely.
On a steep and fast downhill, I got stung by another wasp, this time on the neck. It hurt, but nowhere near as bad as when I'd got stung 20+ times at once. I'll just add it to my catalogue of aches and pains: my foot, my backside, my wrists and hands, and occasionally my back. The pain doesn't worry me though -- you learn to ignore it after a while.
The course had been heading mostly south, with the winds coming from the west. We now turned west, right into the wind. That slowed us down a bit.
We reached Martinborough at around 2:30, and discovered that they were having a big fair -- and that the TA course ran right through the middle of it! So what else could we do? We bought some more food. Greg had the great idea of buying some rolls to eat later on the Rimutaka Incline, and we then carefully walked our bikes through the crowd.
On the other side, we had a long section on the main road, with tons of cars from the fair. That wasn't pleasant.
We finally turned off the main road, and followed some quiet back roads to Cross Creek, the start of the Rimutaka Railway Incline. The last part was on a dirt track beside a quiet road, which was s but disheartening as the trail was much slower.
At Cross Creek, we began to climb. It was about 4:30 as we entered the Rimutaka Incline Track. The trail was excellent, a constant 7% grade the whole way up. If it wasn't for the winds we would have had a fantastic ride. We were heading right into the teeth of a strong Westerly. It felt as though Wellington was a giant trying to blow us off the back of its hand so we couldn't come close.
I was blown off my bike three times -- no crashes, just having to quickly put my foot down and hang on until the wind gust died. One time I almost went over a bank and would have done if I hadn't stopped riding quickly.
We crossed the Siberian Gully, where a huge bridge used to be. We had to walk our bikes across a rocky stream there.
We then reached the first of the tunnels. My bike light was very handy there. The weird thing was that the wind suddenly picked up halfway through, chilling me.
We stopped and ate out rolls, as we were getting quite hungry again.
After more climbing and several tunnels, we finally reached a grassy campsite at the top. Someone had said there was drinkable water there, but we couldn't find it so we pushed on, down the hill.
It was still really windy and I was getting quite cold, so I had to stop and put on my jacket.
The trail climbed a bit more before finally descending to Te Maruia near Upper Hutt. It was about 7:30 by this time. Fortunately, the dairy was still open, so we had a pie and a milkshake. I made the mistake of ordering a thickshake, which was lovely but took forever to eat.
From there, we joined the Hutt River Trail, and made our way as quickly as we could down the Hutt River. We rode as quickly as we could in the half-light, finally reaching Pete's place at about 9 pm. We had done it!
Even better, we managed to get a booking for the 9 am ferry the next morning. Onwards to the South Island!
We passed the halfway point today. Twelve days to get here = 24 days to finish. That's a very respectable time for the whole 3,000 km course. Let's see what we can do.
We're camping on Pete's lawn tonight after enjoying a huge meal of Thai takeaways.
The adventure continues...
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