Into the abyss
Hunterville to Apiti
65.6km
Today looked like being a toughie, but not as tough as Steve & Jill were going to have it heading all the way to Ashurst via SH54. Lack of accommodation elsewhere, you see. Of course, it only occurred to us about 10km before Apiti that our AirBnB has two double rooms...
The Station Hotel proudly announces that it has no self-service kitchen, and no food is allowed in the rooms. So we prepared our usual breakfast & lunch rolls outside on the pub tables. The facilities are otherwise fine, and the hosts welcoming to cyclists.
We got away shortly before 9, leaving town on a quiet backwater street. Before joining the melee that is SH1, for about 5km. Actually, this was not bad at all: traffic was light, the shoulder 'adequate' as the Kennetts have it. Even on the uphill, all the traffic used the passing lane to pass us, we never had to contend with two drivers focussed on passing/being passed and thus paying less attention to slow-moving two yellow blobs on the shoulder. Even at the two bridges with no shoulder we lucked out, with no vehicles approaching from behind at either. If anything, SH54 was worse, with no shoulder at all as it wound steeply down to the Rangitikei bridge. Again, neglible traffic made this a comfortable run
As we climbed from the Vinegar Hill junction we soon reached the turn into Sandon Block Road. And continued to climb. But not before stopping for a look back to the river, for which Marg carefully parked her bike. In the ditch... The side road was gravel. Loose gravel over de-ee-ee-ep cor-rug-a-a-a-tions. Climbing was slow and arduous, descending slow and cautious. The motors got quite a workout from both of us. With no traffic we were getting a bit complacent, and I was on the right of the road when a ute appeared round the blind right-hander above. I shot right, Marg went left, and the driver stood on his brakes. No harm done, and nothing more than a cheery hello from the driver. After 14km of the quoted 11km of gravel we'd just concluded that the book had transposed the gravel/seal distances when we crossed a one-lane bridge (one of many...). A sign facing the other way cautioned 'GRAVEL ROAD', which meant we were back on seal. Life just got a lot easier and more comfortable.
We were still climbing steadily, until after our 30km break it became steep. We were starting our final climb out of the Rangitikei catchment across the divide to the Manawatu. We made the final turn toward Rangiwahia at the site of the old Pemberton 'temporary' settler village and were faced with a long, arrow straight road, pointing directly toward the cloud-capped Ruahine range. It was also on a visually imperceptible incline, uphill. The disconnect between what the eyes were seeing and what the legs could feel was odd, to say the least. We stopped for lunch (possibly our earliest of the trip) at the Rangiwahia Hall campground, a lovely community facility.
From here the route continued much the same, head down, steadily pumping legs, inexorably but imperceptibly gaining elevation. Or at least I was. Marg had paused to look at a Manawatu visitor information board, and was some distance behind. At first all I could see was a yellow dot away down the road. Which did not seem to be getting any larger, until it was almost upon me. A bit like the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the attackers approach in a series of jump-cuts that each time move them back a bit... The most alarming moment (with Marg, not in the movie) was when the farmer let the enormous black bull I'd not long passed out of its paddock just in front of Marg. It seemed to stand in the middle of the road weighing up its options while the farmer fiddled around closing the gate. Fortunately he used his side-by-side to herd the bull onto the left verge, and Marg to the far right, putting the farmer between her and the bull.
Shortly after, we crested the brow to be presented with a stunning vista of rolling Manawatu farmland and forest. A right turn, and we began our staccato descent toward Apiti. The book describes two 'ravines' to be negotiated in this stretch. The first is a descent down from near the head of a steep valley (missed the best photo op right at the top), across the stream, and up out of the valley bottom continuing downstream. The second involves a winding, bench-cut (and rapid) descent into a developed gorge, with a similar, though not quite as rapid. climb out on the other side. If you look closely, you'll see the faint spec of yellow that is Marg, crossing the bridge.
At the top, the road abruptly switches back to flat, river-terrace farmland, very similar to thexroad into and out of Rangiwahia. Except this time the visually imperceptible incline was in our favour: from a hard-working 13kph to 25kph with little effort and no e-assistance.
Into Apiti, find the 'Last Church's, and call the owner because we have no information about how to get in. Once inside, very disappointed to find no further information, no obvious prep for our arrival. Turns out that because we booked directly rather than through AirBnB, the usual process of online messaging had glitched. Another call to Alex, and we find a hitherto unseen door is to the pantry, with a (fairly meagre) selection of foods including muesli and oatmeal. We eventually worked out how to operate the induction hob, and cooked and ate the dinner we'd brought with us. At about 7:45 I get a call from Gemma, who has not yet spoken to Alex, panicking that we might be waiting on the doorstep, profusely apologising for the cockup, and offering to come up from Kimbolton with fresh fruit and more breakfast products. We, of course, refused...
