I had a slow start to the day. I felt I needed to treat myself to a cooked breakfast so I broke camp and headed for a cafe in town for some very sugary waffles. I then got some supplies at the supermarket and ran into Steph and another TA rider in the carpark. Steph had family to stay with in town so wasn’t affected by the lack of beds. The other TA rider had fallen off on the Timber Trail and torn his rotator cuff so was having to abandon. He said he’d fallen off a few times, which made me wonder why he didn’t get the hint and walk the tricky muddy bits as I had done (smarty pants me).
Time was getting on so I pushed on and kept a good pace out of town on gravel roads which climbed for the best part of 20 kms. At lunchtime I made a short deviation to Owhango and filled up on water.
Near Owhango.
The road from here to Whakahoro was all downhill. A number of times it seemed like I had descended as far as was possible before the road headed down some more. There were a few sketchy bits of gravel but mostly it was really fast and fun. I stopped at the Blue Duck Cafe for a toasted sandwich and put my tent out on the lawn to dry out as it was quite wet from last night’s dew. It was so hot that it took only a few minutes to be bone dry. Quin and Brendhan were leaving as I arrived. I stayed in the shade drinking iced water for a little while before getting going on the Kaiwhakauka Track. I wasn’t looking forward to this bit on my cross bike. There had been a bit of a Facebook fundraiser to improve the track prior to the TA. I couldn’t see any evidence of an improved track but didn’t know what it was like before. I’m not complaining though as I didn’t contribute anything as my philosophy was I was going to walk the tricky bits anyway and treat the track as an opportunity to have a rest from cycling. And that’s pretty much what I had for about the first hour. A nice walk with my bike. (As things would turn out the track would be rendered impassible in just a few days time by another cyclone.) I stopped at the Mosely DOC shelter and refilled one of my water bottles and added some purification tablets hoping I wouldn’t actually need to drink it. I don’t trust the water anywhere near the Whanganui River after I got a stomach bug here a few years back.
Kaiwhakauka Track.
The track improved slowly and broke out into open but rough farmland. Periodically there were signs with people’s names. At first I thought it was just some random signs left over from I don’t know what, and then as they became more regular I realised they were names of the original settlers marking out where their plots of land were. At the top of the climb there was an impressive memorial to the early settlers with an info panel showing all their names and many of their photos. I wasn’t expecting this at all so it was a pleasant surprise. It is hard not to feel for the men who survived WWI only to wind up in one of the most remote and rugged parts of the North Island having to slog their guts out to make a living with no support. Feeling very lucky to not be an early settler I started the long descent to the Mangapurua Stream and Johnson’s Campsite. Again me and my bike are not best suited to rough descending so I took it very slowly. Before too long and came across Quin who was part way through changing his rear tyre. He said it blew from his rim overheating with all the braking (he was riding a Long Haul Trucker with V brakes). He didn’t need any help but asked me to let Brendhan know as he’d be waiting and wondering at the bottom; as sure enough he was.
WWI Returned Servicemen memorial.
It wasn’t long before we reached the campsite and pitched our tents. There was some old fruit trees there obviously planted by the original settlers. We spent an entertaining few minutes trying to get some out of reach pears off a big old tree. The fruit looked good but it was still a bit green.
