I decided to try and make up some time today and was rolling by 6:15. The Dury Hill elevator wasn't open this early which was a shame and it meant a bit of a climb to wake me up. On the outskirts of town kids were waiting for the school bus on the roadside. Most didn't show any signs of life except that they were standing up, but one was memorable as he was singing with some volume to a Beatles song playing on a boom box.
The road to Hunterville was very quiet. There were sections of roadworks and I could see there were bike tracks in the dirt so someone was ahead but I never saw them.
I stopped for morning tea at Hunterville. I thought I had taken a regular pie from the café’s warming cabinet but when I came to eat it I found it was some disgusting meat and fruit thing and I had to bin it.
The road to Rangiwahia.
The way to Rangiwahia seemed never ending. My saddle was feeling very uncomfortable and for relief I needed to stand up lots; especially on the climbs because my lowest great was only 38x46. I have an oval chainring which I love but it doesn't work so well when standing on the pedals. The resistance at the top and bottom of the pedal stroke is lessened so you end up going through the stroke too quickly with too little resistance and too much jerkiness.
I finally got to Rangiwahia and even though I knew there was nothing there I was disappointed when I found there really was nothing there. I did make use of the public toilets but I could see a large workman's boot under one of the toilet stall’s door. Presumably the large workman's boot was attached to a large workman and so I found it erie to be in a confined toilet block with a mystery man in a seemingly deserted town. I left as soon as possible and continued on.
The afternoon wore on. The route was nice but my energy levels were low. I developed a habit of looking at my gps trip computer for ‘significant’ numbers; 88.88km, 100 km, 101.01km etc. It started doing my head in so I turned the display off.
I had a couple of the gels that Russell the trail angel had given me and then for the last 30 km fuelled with party mix lollies.
My bike having a rest.
I got to Ashhurst on dusk and found the domain where apparently there was camping. It looked a bad place to camp so I headed to the Ashhurst Hotel. The publican was friendly and they had rooms and Martin and Pete were there. That evening there was a big thunderstorm. I was very happy not to be camping after the longest day so far which the GPS told me had also included more than 2500m of climbing.
