DAY 8 - Blue duck station to Wanganui

DAY 8 - Blue duck station to Wanganui – 126km /  7:27 Riding / 11:20 total /  17 kph average

Next morning I met the Mt Eden boys at the start of the Kaiwhakauka track but they were waiting for some faffers in their party so I pushed on alone up to the top of the trig. The track was in pretty good condition and mostly ridable even the steep climb to the top. I ended up loving it and really enjoyed the whole bridge to nowhere track especially since a lot of it was great single track through beautiful native forest. It was so remote and scenic and the Whanganui river thundered far below in the gorge. I had always wanted to ride this track and now here I was with the weather conditions perfect and this part became the highlight of the North island for me. Their were sections of "please dismount" which duly ignored but I did dismount to cross all the swing bridges. I passed lots of other TA riders, took some photos of the bridge to nowhere (which actually now leads to somewhere, that being the jetboat pickup/dropoff point) and arrived at the landing taking just over 4 hours instead of the expected 5-6.

I had originally booked a 13:30 jetboat but was able to hop on one which left much earlier with all the other people I had passed on it even though it was a different company. There was 1 space left and this proved to be another miracle as once I got back into reception range I had a message from the original jetboat company saying they could not do the 1:30 pickup and I would have been stuck there for hours otherwise.

After the elation of the bridge to nowhere I went completely flat and struggled in the heat through the backroads to Wanganui where I stayed at Erika's flat for the night. I hadn't seen her in years so was good to catch up and of course we went out for a thai curry. The gentle Annie climb just before the flat spin into town was a real grunter. Never believe other riders when they say the climbs are easy.