Day 3 to Pouto Point: 10 March 2020
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 was nearly a Mt Taranaki's worth.
Arrived feeling better that yesterday, and the community hall bunk room was full of TA riders - about seven of them - yay, caught up!
NZ's smallest church
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 was nearly a Mt Taranaki's worth.
Arrived feeling better that yesterday, and the community hall bunk room was full of TA riders - about seven of them - yay, caught up!
NZ's smallest church
Rick, and his cafe, at Donnelly's Crossing was also one of my trip highlights. 👍
ReplyDeleteHelen here!
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