Sunshine and showers

Pipiriki to Whanganui/Wanganui (so good they named it twice...)

75.6km

One of our longer days, but on average about 200m downhill! And all on seal, despite what the Kennetts' say about gravel cycle paths.

A chilly morning after a fairly wet day-off at the campground. Wendy & Tony had arrived mid-morning by shuttle, after a 3 day traverse of the Timber Trail and some unspecified bike issues. They'd never intended to do the Mangaparua section anyway. Between the 'free food' box in the camp kitchen, Josephine's garden tomatoes, and Ken's delicious venison sausages we mustered up a decent dinner. And we still had a couple of beers to share.

The weather was dreech: cold, lingering dampness punctuated by brief, light showers: not conducive to getting going, but the later forecast was for strong and rising Southerlies, so it was a choice between getting wet or punching headwinds. In the end we chose both, but more of that later.

The ride started with a brief uphill, to our highest point of the day, where we got a great view upstream of the river below. The forest gradually gave way to farmland, on both sides of the Whanganui as we undulated our way down the River Road past Jerusalem, London and Corinth, or their Te Reo transliterations if you prefer. At our 10km stop we were caught up by Richard, who'd ridden in from Raitihi on his more urban Speciaiized, bemoaning that he'd already used 70% of his available power. We chatted probably for longer than expected when it transpired he was en route to Dunedin for his son's pottery exhibition. Those who know us well will be aware of Marg's brother's potty connection, and time was spent joining the dots on who knew who and collected what. He headed off at speed and we followed at our more sedate pace.

Shortly after, one of the drizzly showers turned into something more intense, so we quickly donned waterproof tops. Then we realised we didn't have any reason to rush, so found the next significant overhanging tree and waited it out in the relative dry. Sooner than expected we arrived at the Matakiwi cafe, with the movie-prop River Queen boat prominent outside. As it was once again raining hard we dived inside for respite and refreshment. Marg only took tea, but I enjoyed a slice of Nana Nellie's chocolate fudge cake, while waiting for the return of the only server who could work the coffee machine who'd popped up the road to get eggs. Only in NZ... To compound the delay, when she returned the place got busy and my order was missed until I eventually gave a polite prompt. As we later discovered, part of the distraction was her chasing away a group of motorists (in 9, top-down-in-the-rain MX5's) who were spending a penny without spending a cent. We'd arrived just behind Richard who had negotiated charging his battery whilst having full-English second breakfast. He proceeded to pick our brains about touring on an ebike, managing power consumption, etc. In all we spent about 1 1/2 hours at the cafe while the weather brightened up somewhat. We eventually left him contemplating lunch while awaiting his battery.

Almost immediately we were distracted again, first by the sight of a young boy being transported on the 'bull-bar' of a quad bike, then by their eye-dog which had a small mob of sheep under silent control in the paddock. We stood ready to video the sheep being brought down to the gate, when the shepherd had a change of plan and moved to the next paddock. On command, the dog streaked directly across to the new sheep, through the fence rather than detouring to the gate. The shepherd released a second, heading dog, opened a gate to the road, and the mob proceeded to do multiple circuits of the paddock while steadfastly ignoring the open gate. We checked where he wanted the sheep to go, and relocated ourselves 'downstream' of the gate, but it still took the combined efforts of man, boy, two dogs, and Marg on gate duty to persuade them to exit the paddock. He had the sense to keep his more boisterous dogs locked in their dog-boxes on the trailer; Ken, eat your heart out!

We eventually moved on, stopping a couple more times to sit out very brief showers under convenient trees, and paused for lunch at a little roadside campsite. The photo strategically conceals the enormous cow-pat right in front of the picnic bench.

From then on it was a pleasant ride, undulating gradually downhill, the river an ever present feature to our right. Past Athens, past The Flying Fox accommodation, across the river by, appropriately, a flying fox. And another such conveyance to a farm, which had me connecting whether stock also crossed the river in mid air. The enclosed car suggested they might. On one rise, Richard sped past, pedals turning at a leisurely cadence. Apparently all our wisdom about battery conservation had fallen in deaf ears... As the valley opened out the headwind made its presence felt, reminiscent of Tadmor valley last year, but never to excess.

We skirted a couple more showers, and eventually reached the precursor to the infamous Gentle Annie climb. This is a climb of about 150m over 3km, to a stupendous final view up the river valley, before dropping just as fast down the other side of the ridge. Following a not-too-busy SH4 for about 3km on its side shoulder brought us to the cycleway at Upokongaro, onto super-smooth new concrete and across the stunning $2.75M dedicated cycle bridge across the river. The gravel path turned out to now be smooth concrete followed by tar-seal, until it ended on Somme Parade, the riverside road into Whanganui. Our home for two nights, Braemar House YHA, is right en route, though a kilometre or so out of the town centre. A visit to the closest curry house yielded a meal big enough for the doggy-bag to do us a second night.

A day of sunshine and showers, sometimes at the same time!

And in the way of these things, Facebook reminded us that exactly one year ago we reached Bluff...

https://www.relive.cc/view/vNOP7Ep5z2v