Strava Stats : 156.8 km 2182m height gain 8 hours 45 minutes cycling Long day to reach Pouto Point - to catch the ferry early the next morning. Intended to leave by 7:30am, but over-slept - so 8:30am start. Straight up big hills to Tane Mahuta in in Waipoua Forest. Caught up with an over-laden overweight Irishman called Alan, the first TA cyclist I seen since the start - and left him fairly quickly in the dust. The weather was dodgy - grey start, seemed to clear in the afternoon but big stormclouds would deliver heavy rain periodically. A stiff sidewind came up - nice and cooling and didn't slow me down. A highlight was the temporary Donnelly's Crossing Cafe - set up for the TA - the owner told me that some earlier waves of riders had strong southerlies on 90 Mile Beach and took two or three days to ride it! Dargaville was about 2/3 of the way - a long last 70km down the peninsula to Pouto Point had some nasty hills near the end - today's altitude gain wa...
Today I started the Tour Aotearoa! There was a bit of a mad dash from the paragliding nationals competition in Rotorua, which finished yesterday. Driving from there to a friend's place near Tutukaka (a 5 hour drive) then another 4 hours this morning up to Cape Reinga for the official TA start at noon was a bit of a mission - luckily I have a very lovely and helpful partner (Kris) who I volunteered as my Uber driver. The day was pretty good for cycling - a brisk north east wind was (mostly) tailwind, and propelled me down Ninety Mile beach on firm sand at a brisk pace, to Hukatere Lodge Camp, where I had booked a cabin for me and Kris (my last night with Kris for a while as he heads south tomorrow). As I started late today, I cycled a modest 75km in 4 hours of cycling (5 hours with rests). The real hard stuff starts tomorrow! Here is my Strava track-log . PS - don't forget to check out my Give-a-Little page for the Pelorus bats: https://givealittle.co.nz...
Strava Stats : 96.46km, 1452m altitude gain, 6h cycling, average 16km/h From Matamata, back roads took me to the Waikato river trail, and pleasant cycling to Arapuni, and the Rhubarb cafe for lunch. Tom was there, and Millie and Mike arrived as I left. There was a closed section of the trail, so riders had to divert around on country roads - probably a bit easier!! I rejoined the trail 19km before Mangakino, and had a tough single-track ride that went up and down, and up again etc etc.... Hard at the end of the day! Free camping by the lakeside for the night - and a delicious swim in the surprisingly warm water was great after a long warm day! Alan arrived later, and a couple of other TA cyclists. In town, I bumped into Millie, Mike , Matt and Tom, and had an underwhelming (but cheap) meal at the chip shop.
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