DAY 7 – Pureora to blue duck station (Whakahoro)

DAY 7 – Pureora to blue duck station (Whakahoro) – 181ks /  15 hours total / 10 hours riding /  18.1kph average

Summary - Huge huge day. Awoke to a mist which then turned into rain and it lasted all though timber trail, but it was beautiful and fun also and I had a blast. Lost a water bottle on the super long decent but it was picked up by the good chap Ollie behind me. I later returned the favour to him by giving him an anti histamine after he got stung on the tongue in Taumarunui.

The mud on the trail was causing havoc for everyones gears. I had to clean and re-lube my shifter cable several times during the 80k section as the cable was completely gunked up. The timber trail took 7 hours in the end and by the time I rolled into Taumarunui it was half past 4 which was an hour later than I wanted. I still had 71k to go and this included a big climb up to the central plateau and then a massively long descent into the Whanganui National park. I fuelled up by having a thai red curry! Curry's are the popular choice of meals on this trip for me.

Unfortunately as I was pumping the rear tyre up the valve exploded so that was the end of tubeless for a while at least. This delayed me leaving by another 30 min. I didn't leave Taumarunui until 6:30 which was an hour and a half later than I wanted to!!! So I knew it would be a late finish and a lot of riding in the dark again.

The rain had cleared as i headed for Whakahoro. It was gravel most of the way but I managed to get the big ascent done before it was dark and switched on the lights to start the 50k descent. Without really stopping I pushed on through the evening and reached my destination 3.5 hours later which was a great effort.

It was disappointing to not be able to see the amazing scenery and I could hear the Whanganui river down below me as I followed it down the valley. I arrived at blue duck station at 10PM. So hopefully I can actually get some sleep tonight before I tackle the notorious Kaiwhakauka track tomorrow morning and I hope the track is not as bad as Johnathan Kennett has been blogging about!!!!