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Tour Aotearoa – My Day Nine – Palmerston North to Wellington

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With all the hills of northern Manawatu still in my legs, I’d no real plan for how far I’d make it. I also realised I hadn’t seen a single rider on the route the previous day – a first for my Tour. That was quite alright as I’d so enjoyed the day. The day from Palmerston North turned out to be quite social in other ways. Having seen university flatmates, Terry & Kate, in town I was pleased to see a car pull over in front of me as I ground up the Pahiatua Track. After battling with a typically dastardly Palmy gale for ninety-odd minutes, the chance to stop was welcome. It was Louis, a childhood friend & uni flatmate of the same flat, on his way to work in Pahiatua – great to catch up, albeit in an unusual place.

Not far past the summit was a turn off to a rural road – it was nice to escape the morning traffic crossing the Tararuas. Most of the day was on rural back roads through more hilly farms – first dairying country, before it got drier and more inclined to sheep & beef farming. I was disappointed not to get a full English breakfast in Pahiatua, but still ate well for second breakfast. After the steep downhill off the ranges, the route climbed gradually for fifty or so clicks – thankfully the wind was much less forceful on the east of the Tararuas. Still a headwind for much of the day, it was not quite a nuisance or too much of a hindrance.

More rural scenes, it started out green.

I stopped for the photo checkpoint, and pies, in Eketahuna. The giant kiwi has gone albino.

Around noon, a friend met me in the middle of nowhere to ride the thirty-five kilometres down into Masterton. Craig, a Pukekohe & NZ Steel mountain-biking buddy, was now back learning the ropes to take over the family farm. It was great to have someone to chat with (there was a lot of catching up to do as we hadn’t seen each other since the fantastic Queen Charlotte ride seven years before) – obviously Craig was pretty interested in the Tour and bikes too, so the time passed quickly.

I did find a proper breakfast (second-lunch, or third-breakfast, by this stage) in Masterton. There were even beans! Little did I know that that would be the last full English I’d find on my trip – despair.

Masterton even got in on this swing-bridge thing, but I suspect they’d had their’s long before DOC even existed.

Bidding farewell to Craig, I continued south into the breeze, enjoying the scenery and the lack of traffic. I always found plenty to look at – at some stage there was even a big sign out encouraging Tour Aotearoa riders. It was definitely drier this far south in the Wairarapa. There was plenty of time to think with no other riders around. As I considered the previous week, thoughts turned to the Tour Divide – what I like to call the grandaddy of these types of events. That event has been on my radar for a few years now and I was beginning to think that I might be a possibility of having a good attempt at it.

But it’s so much more epic, that it would require much more planning and time. At about 4500 km (fifty percent longer) and with over sixty thousand metres of climbing (almost twice as much) following the Continental Divide from Canada through five US states to the Mexican border it is more extreme in almost every way. Longer, colder (up north), hotter (down south), with dangerous animals, proper mountain passes, and greater distances between resupply – I’d be a fool to turn up with amount of preparation I did for Tour Aotearoa. One day, in a few years, I’ll have sufficient leave and time to have a go – at least, I sure hope so as Tour Aotearoa had been so fantastic so far.

I turned east towards Martinborough as the sun sunk.

It was great to stop in Martinborough and to catch up my uncle and aunt. As always, Tour stories and practicalities dominated the conversation. The week so far was certainly different for me – having so much to talk about. From here, I had a few options: call an early day in Martinborough, or carry on riding and either camp at the top of the Rimutakas, stay the night at one of the open homes (there were homes of supporters of the Tour on the route that were open to riders to stay in) around Wellington or make the early morning Cook Strait ferry.

After a nap and dinner, I went with the theory it’s good to do something a little crazy & push oneself every so often; I jumped online and booked a ticket on the two-thirty ferry. I had six hours to ride a hundred kilometres and cross the Rimutakas by night. It would be close, but I was confident as the wind would be at my back from Martinborough to the hills and I’d previously crossed the Rimutaka Incline and knew it wasn’t too difficult (being an old, albeit steeper-than-normal, rail route). All went pretty much according to plan, I easily made the Incline trailhead before dark and the trail up was easily ridden in the dark.

Heading for the hills.

Another checkpoint – the Rimutaka summit tunnel, at about twenty to ten.

It was a pleasant night for riding (I don’t think I would have bothered otherwise) and the ride off the hills was great fun. Things started to slow a bit as I followed the Hutt River down to Wellington harbour. The navigation through all the little turns wasn’t particularly easy in the dark, even with the GPS track to follow, and it just went on and on. I was starting to cut it fine, but finally I was on the cycle path sandwiched between dual-carriageway and the harbourside railway heading for the ferry terminal. I was surprised to have to stop and get marshalled through midnight track work that had taken over the cycle path.

With only seven kilometres to go I started getting calls from the ferry company wondering where I was. Apparently boarding was an hour before sailing for foot passengers (!) – I’d not read that in my rush to book a ticket. I assured them I was almost there and then stepped on the gas. Another phone call from someone else at the ferry halted progress – “I’d be there by now if you’d stop bloody phoning me”. Past parliament and I checked in – & then promptly waited fifteen minutes until boarding.

There were far more Tour Aotearoa riders waiting in the boarding lounge than I imagined – they’e all been in Wellington far longer than I had. I was pleased to finally catch up to and chat to Jonathon Kennett – thanks to his tireless work putting the route together and basically organising everything, we were all on this grand adventure. The adrenaline was still coursing through me after the mad dash at the end of a pleasant night ride, so I found it a little difficult to settle into a slumber after we boarded.

I did remember to get the obligatory checkpoint photo from the ferry, before trying to get some sleep on the rest of the voyage.

Stretched out over a few seats, I took some time to consider that I’d just ridden (more than, really) the length of the North Island in eight and a half days. Over half the trip was done and I was therefore well on track to finish in the eighteen days I had – this was good to know. But even more pleasing was that I’d put some consecutive long, hilly, rough, hot and tough days together without too much bother – that is after the stomach upsets of the first twenty-four hours. I wasn’t expecting that. With this general satisfaction of my Tour so far and anticipation of the remaining adventure I drifted off to a surprisingly reasonable, albeit only three hours, of sleep. Oh, and this was my longest day on a bike ever – but by no means the toughest.

bikepacking, bikes, event, GPS, NZ

Tour Aotearoa – My Day Eight – Whanganui to Palmerston North

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On the face of it, riding from Whanganui to Palmerston North should be a matter of four or five hours with little climbing. But that would be on highway and not nearly interesting enough for our route. Cue a rural route more than two and a half times as long, strewn with hills and six or seven times more climbing – on a lot of gravel roads. While this may sound a less attractive option – it was fantastic and I loved this day through northern Manawatu. Some may bemoan more farmland, but I found it beautiful, the hills not too bad and my favourite day of the Tour.

You’d have struggled to convince me of that assertion after ninety minutes of pre-dawn struggling into a stiff easterly towards Fordell. I had to stop and have a breather in the shelter of a still-closed store there. Knowing the windy reputation of the area, I was trying to prepare myself of two-hundred kilometres of strong headwinds. It wasn’t something I was looking forward to.

However, shortly after, the route turned north and dropped off the plateau into a valley – blissful shelter from the wind. All the hills that we encountered did a great job of keeping the wind from being too bothersome. I’m not sure how that worked as valleys usually funnel wind. Turning east again I was enjoying the rural nature of the ride again – there was plenty to look at.

I was surprised to see Mt Ruapehu in the distance all of a sudden (it’s the tallest peak in the North Island) as I looked out over all the hills.

Just before I reached Hunterville and State Highway One I had my first sighting of a trail angel. This was very exciting as I’d only heard tales of these wonderful people who provide refreshments trailside to riders of such events as this. I stopped for a while to partake of the homemade comestibles and chat. Despite all the good food, ride on one must. Hunterville was much bigger than I’d ever imagined having driven through on the highway many times. As there was a whole lot of not much as far as food supplies for a hundred kilometres, I managed to force myself to stop for second-breakfast and to buy first-lunch.

After a brief stint on the highway, we turned off at Vinegar Hill (which brought back memories of short-cuts driving to & from university many years ago). The climb after plunging down to the river was much more difficult on a bike; we turned off the sealed road soon after and I was on roads unknown to me once again. The climbing continued – there were more wide vistas, old buildings to catch my interest and few cars. With excellent cycling weather – warm, but cloudy enough to not be hot, no wind – the miles ticked by easily.

Just as I was getting peckish again – it had been a few hours since a meal, one can’t survive on bags of crisps and sweets alone – I found a little shaded turn-out at an ex-village. A pleasant spot for lunch. Here’s the history, if you can read it:

Old buildings continued to pique my interest.

Rangiwahia was bigger than I would have imagined if I’d ever heard of it. It would have been nice to poke around a bit and stay at the campground – but it was only just after noon. On to Palmy.

The highest point of the day came just as the route turned south towards Ashhurst – and about as close to the Ruahine Ranges as we got. From there it was downhill overall for the ninety kilometres to Palmy – but when there are rivers and valleys involved it’s never that simple.

Pleasant enough plains for a while.

Until you reach a valley carved out by water flowing out of the ranges – a big plunge and a steep climb to recover most of the altitude lost. You can just see the road going down the valley wall towards the left of this picture.

The clouds building up said the weather might not be so benign for so long.

I’d never been to Apiti either – I found the street signs caused a little bit of confusion.

There was a steep gravel downhill before the last tough climb of the day before dropping into the Pohangina Valley – things started to look familiar as I enjoyed a great day ride here a few months before as a little bit of reconnaissance. I stopped to visit the large totara trees that served as a photo checkpoint before carrying on down the valley. As I neared Palmerston North, the headwind strengthed – of course. I’d have been a fool to expect anything else.

Although it wasn’t far to the city, I knew there weren’t many shops on the route – it followed the bridle path besides the Manawatu. At least, that’s my excuse for stopping for second-lunch in Ashhurst. Still battling the wind I was content to call it a day in Palmy just shy of two hundred kilometres. The chance to stop riding before dark, and most importantly, do some washing was golden. While I’d had many more showers than I expected I would, my shirt in particular was pretty rank and seemed to be losing flexibility and setting into some shape with all the grime and sweat.

After the shorter first three days, I was now well into the groove of the Tour and clearly getting stronger and more able to ride for about twelve hours a day. Naturally this was pleasing, if a little surprising to me – especially as my legs never really complained about the hills. That’s not to say I was particularly fast, but I’d found a pace that I felt I could keep up for as long as necessary. Beautiful scenery, exploring this small but scenery-packed country and good weather also helped with well-pleased mood too.

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Tour Aotearoa – My Day Seven – Kaiwhakauka Trail to Whanganui

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I’d long given up the plan/hope of reaching the first jet boat down the Whanganui at eight o’clock. So I could afford a bit of a sleep-in as the forecast rain fell – I set off into the pre-dawn gloom at six. The rugged walking trail that I gave up riding the previous night didn’t last long. Instead the valley opened up a bit and flattened out into grass, that was being lightly grazed. Route finding in the semi-light and through the long wet grass wasn’t the easiest, but the GPS track meant I couldn’t go too wrong.

Leaving the valley floor, the route was now on a decades old-road and much easier riding. The rain strengthened and weakened with enough regularity to make layering & delayering a bit of a nuisance – it was too hot & muggy to keep the wet weather gear on if it wasn’t raining. It’s always a little disappointing to miss out on seeing as much as normal when the clouds are so low, I was curious to know what was out there. But the conditions helped to add to the feeling of isolation and remoteness – that people came to live up here seemed improbable at best. But more of that later in the next valley.

Found this where the track met the road/track in from Raetihi. Bike looking very lightly loaded as I’m wearing all my wet-weather gear.

Two hours after setting off, I had crested the highest point and was on the long downhill to the Bridge to Nowhere. As the old double-track descended further into the Mangapurua Valley, clearings now slowly being reclaimed by the bush became more numerous and larger.

This valley was one of the places around the country that servicemen returning from World War One were given marginal land to farm. Marginal is of course a complete understatement – as I was seeing, this land was extremely rugged and very isolated. I was astonished that a few families managed to labour here for over twenty years before the settlement was abandoned – and they had nothing to show for their toils. What a reward for surviving the trenches.

Every so often there would be some sort of introduced flowering plant still surviving – the contrast was stark. Still quite a few non-native pines growing strongly.

There were also many small signs with surnames displayed – remembering the families that had those particular plots.  This simple method of memorial was quite poignant – as there really is very little left showing forty-odd families lived here.

Across the valley – there are many ferns there reclaiming the grassland.

The riding was pretty easy, still heading down. There were quite a few bits where riders were advised to walk – but as they had nothing on the Old Ghost Road, I rode most of them.

There were many rather skinny bridges on the route – it got a little tedious regularly upending one’s loaded bike & wheeling it through on its back wheel.  Finally, I was at the Bridge to Nowhere!  A place that had held almost-mythical status in my mind since I’d first heard of it at the age of ten or so.  It really is a substantial concrete feat of engineering in the middle of nowhere.  Rather bizarre – it wouldn’t be out of place in many big cities (it reminds me a bit of Grafton Rd bridge in Auckland), here it is linking two sides of a valley covered in ferns.

It was built to give better access for the families described above – to save them clambering up & down the valley walls. But by the time it was built they had the road (that I’d just ridden in on from the north) for access – so it was of little use and therefore little used as river access was no longer important.

But river access was now important to me. After savouring my time at the Bridge, it was a short ride down to the Whanganui River and the landing to meet the jet boat. There was a big rock on the side of the river and not much else. Ten-thirty rolled around and no jet boat. The rain continued to roll in waves. Quite alone with no other riders, and most importantly no boat – this was most definitely the most vulnerable and not-in-control I felt on the whole tour. Which was a bit silly as of course there were plenty of riders somewhere behind me, but I’d not seen any all day and it was rather wet and miserable.

My bike, a rock and quite a river.

Eventually a jet boat appeared around the corner and zoomed up the river merrily ignoring me. Just as I traipsed a bit back up the trail to a shelter, other riders started to arrive and the rain stopped. Things were looking up. They had a boat booked at one o’clock, I was confident I’d be able to blag a seat on it. So there was a couple of hours to kill – spent chatting, cleaning bikes, snacking and enjoying the non-rain.

So it happened that I did get a ride on this boat – I think we had ten bikes and riders. I was pleased my bike didn’t go on a rack projecting out from the stern.

Still a bit miffed that the boat that was supposed to pick me up never arrived (apparently they ran one at about nine o’clock) – don’t use Bridge to Nowhere if you want a jet boat on the Whanganui, go with Whanganui River Adventures – they were great. It did make my decision to ride into the night before look even less sensible than it already did. In the end I made that two or three hours lost over the following couple of days.

In one of the more surreal moments of my Tour, one of the other riders was carrying a ukelele the length of the country. Someone else got hold of it and there we were sitting on a jet boat waiting to cast off listening to a rather stilted rendition of Cows with Guns.

I realised that I’d never been on a commercial jet boat ride in NZ before – so I soaked up a quintessential NZ tourist experience. It was magnificent – the dense native forest coming right down to the river, steep cliffs and numerous waterfalls after the morning’s rain. Wonderful.

Our third boat ride of the Tour over, most of us went up to the company’s base to stock up on what ever food we could and clean our bikes of the morning’s mud. It was now sunny and warm. I set off for Whanganui – the largest place we’d been since Auckland. It was mostly undulating road, a mixture of gravel and seal, near the river with a couple of larger climbs to keep us honest. I was intrigued to cycle past Jerusalem on the Whanganui River after studying James K. Baxter way back in sixth form.

Number plate shed caught my eye.

Just before dark I was in town and as there were no campgrounds near the route, I booked a comfortable room in a backpackers. Apart from the jet boat not turning up, another excellent day. I had made it through what I considered would be the most remote and challenging section of the course and was rather pleased with that and excited by what I’d seen – although I still want to see it all again at a more relaxed pace and in better weather. Only just over a hundred kilometres for the day had me back on average to make it back to work on time – but I wasn’t worried as I knew the route would get a lot faster than the previous two days. Tomorrow there would be more new roads, I was looking forward to seeing parts of Manawatu that I’d never seen the four years I lived there.

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Tour Aotearoa – My Day Six – Timber Trail Start to Kaiwhakauka Trail

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I don’t remember it being a particularly early start, but apparently it was well before five o’clock – early enough for me. The climb I knew was coming was steady and emerged from native forest to cleared land to reveal a vast star-scape in the pre-dawn darkness. I’d only heard great things about the Timber Trail (a new trail since I went overseas that delves into the logging history of the area – as well as being a great trail in its own right), so had long been looking forward to it. Just as I went back into the forest I passed Kirsty, Ian & Ness breaking camp – they made it considerably further than me the previous night.

The trail wasn’t too hard to ride in the dark, although I did rather miss most of the scenery while I climbed. Near the summit of Mt Pureora, dawn arrived and there were glimpses to the east of Lake Taupo (NZ’s largest). I was pleased to have a bit of extra visibility for the first part of the descent – a downhill that went pretty much for twenty-five kilometres. But the clear sky I’d enjoyed previously had misted over completely.

There were plenty of valleys to cross and the feature of the trail I’ll remember most vividly were the huge swing-bridges that had been built to span the valleys. Quite an engineering feat, not to mention the cost, in the middle of nowhere – all for a bike trail!

Standing fifty-odd metres above the valley floor, one gets a good idea of how dense the forest really is.

It’s quite a way down – I’m glad this wasn’t a standard-issue DOC swing-bridge.

The trail then followed an old bush tramway that was used to haul logs out from all over this part of the forest – much smoother riding on a gentle gradient.

The Ongarue Spiral – a very small railway spiral, but interesting as it used both a bridge and a tunnel.

Heading for the tunnel exit.

Eighty kilometres and seven and a half hours later, the Timber Trail was over and I’d lost a lot of altitude – it was decidedly muggy down lower. What a great trail, it hadn’t disappointed; I’m looking forward to going back and riding it again more lightly-loaded and with the time to stop and read all the information/history panels. I’d caught up to a guy from Christchurch at the trailhead – we rode the twenty or so clicks to Taumaranui (on the main trunk line – the only town for over two days) together, he didn’t seem to be having a very good time of it.

There were a lot of riders around town stocking up – I expect most from Wave One that I’d caught up to. As I devoured another cooked breakfast (yes, it was well past lunchtime) the heavens opened and I considered how far I’d get that night. The weather was supposed to be closing in the following morning and the Kaiwhakauka trail didn’t sound like one you wanted to do in such weather. The rain cleared and it was remarkably humid as I rolled out of town for the concerted climb up to Owhango.

As if I needed a reminder that the North Island is very hilly. They never get particularly big or mountainous; but by gosh, there are a lot of them.

General consensus seemed to be that the North Island topography was much more punishing than the South. Having done my small amount of training on the hills behind Hawke’s Bay, I was at least a little conditioned for this.

Nearing Owhango, I decided to push on towards Bridge to Nowhere. I arranged a jet boat pick-up at either eight or ten-thirty the following morning (not really sure if I’d make it through the night to the Whanganui River) and set off.

The long gradual ride down to the Retaruke River and Whakohoro in the evening light was a highlight of the trip.

I think it was in this isolated place I started taking photos of curious, remote buildings from another time. This community hall is still occasionally used, apparently – I saw no signs of such.

The gravel road riding was excellent.

Reaching Whakahoro around sunset I had to decide whether to stay in the large DOC bunkhouse there or push on into the unknown to try and meet the boat the next morning. As it wasn’t raining, I kept going – the fact that there were campsites along the way being the contingency. The ex-road that followed the Whanganui River for a short time was a boggy & slippery mess. Turning up a side-valley the trail narrowed and wasn’t a bike track at all, more a rugged hiking trail. Night fell, as did light rain, and it became clear that my dynamo light was little use on such a slow trail. Donning my headlamp, the slipperiness was a bit of a nightmare. After sliding into the bank softly a couple of times, I had more of a crash into another bank. Self-preservation prevailed, and not having any idea what was actually off the left hand side of the trail, I decided walking was the best and safest option. So ten kilometres from Whakahoro took me almost two hours – I was very pleased when the first campsite came into view; I called it a day there.

What’s more – it had a large shelter, I wouldn’t have to put my tent up in the rain. There I met and chatted to Brett & Helen (it turned out that they know well one of my colleagues I share an office with) who had set their tent up in the shelter – & who I probably woke. I slept well, satisfied with another big day – not in terms of distance, but sheer ruggedness of the terrain. I was excited to see finally see the Bridge to Nowhere the following day.