Take only photographs...

Mangakino to Pureora

53.9km (and 1443m ascent)

You know the slogan: take only photographs (probably needs updating to 'images' [or worse, 'content']), leave only footprints. Today we left a big plastic blot on the lake Maraetai landscape, as Marg's temporary drink bottle escaped its cage and now lingers somewhere on the picturesque Waikato River Trail somewhere between Mangakino and the swing bridge. Given that it's filled with a suspicious yellow liquid, I doubt anyone will pick it up!

We left Maraetai Lodge with Wendy and Tony (Tony says to let you all know he's wasted, and given he's an Aussie it's not from the one can of beer he carried all the way here) but with the undulations and switchbacks of the single-track we soon left them behind. Tony caught up with us a couple of times, but always just as we were moving on from a break and he stopped to wait for Wendy.

We repaid our debt for littering by indulging a different axiom: 'leave it better than you found it. At one junction, where every instinct was to turn right, we realised the demolished road signage included a Cycle Trails sign indicating left. So we stood the sign post back up again, albeit no longer directly in the firing line of ivers not realising there was a T-junction.

The overwhelming (almost literally) theme of today was of climbing. Sometimes gentle, sometimes steady, sometimes intermittent, sometimes grueling. But always bloody up. Until the last 10km.

The seal gave way to gravel, then to 4WD dirt track down to the shiny new Arataki swing bridge. It's still narrow enough for us not to want to ride, but definitely a huge improvement. It's just a shame that while there was heavy equipment there, they didn't do anything about the track on the other side. For 4km we bounced and swerved uphill on the narrow, exceptionally rough, so-called 4WD track. Comparisons were made with Maungatapu and Big River tracks... The usually excellent Kennetts' direction also went awry on this section, with distances bearing no relation to the track, and a completely mythical left turn. We stopped for lunch before the last climb to the centre of the North Island, where our faith in the precision of our directions was restored. I have to say the NZTopo50 app is the best $3.99 I've spent, used in conjuncion with Richard Young's excellent and comprehensive TA GPX files.

When I lived in Inverurie, the local hill was known as Mither Tap (in the parish of Garioch: a small prize for correctly guessing how that is pronounced) which translates from Doric as Mother's Nipple. I suspect Titiraupenga means much the same in Te Reo Maori!

After the short walk we faced the stiffest climb, gaining nearly 100m in about 1km. The gravel through the whole of this section was butt-punishingly rough. After about 15km of this torture we finally joined a proper gravel road, though with still 100m more to climb. What we hadn't reckoned with was a proper gravel road meant 'proper' traffic! As we descended toward our night's stop, each of us in one of the smooth wheel-tracks, a big 4WD ute appeared round the bend. Fortunately the driver was alert, and Marg made it back to stop on the right (left) side of the road. The ute had two rather tasty MTB's on the tray, and the driver told us they'd been up to the top of the Timber Trail and back as a day ride. He also tipped us off about a side-trip (on foot) to the summit of Mount Pureora for spectacular views. So that's now been added to tomorrow's itinerary. Our good luck with traffic held as we were stopped for our final 5km break when a convoy of 4WD's, the last one towing a teardrop caravan, came past. And on downhill, past the TA shortcut to the Timber Trail, to Village Road and the Pureora cabins. I still contend thar it can't be a village as it does not have a pub...

https://www.relive.cc/view/vrqo554moyO