We were at the Beach Head well by 7:00 AM for the loading of the Bikes on to the Kaipara Ferry for the three hour cruise up the Harbour. The loading of the bikes was very much a manual affair as each one was lifted to the upper deck. The cruise up the harbour allowed Ruth and myself to finalise our route through to the Blue Duck Station at Whakahoro which is the last stop before we get jet boated down the Whanganui River.
These Garmin GPS devices all appear to have a very determined mind of their own and something that you think you have mastered suddenly and inexplicably appears to be something you know very little about as it simply will not do what you want it to! Eventually though we did manage to transfer the files across to Ruth's device.
The disembarking of the ferry was marginally quicker than the loading and we underway by aboout 11:00 AM. Helensville is about 3 km from Parakai where the ferry drops you off and while Rob and Ruth had a coffee I popped next door for a "quick" haircut and beard trim. Well the Persian Barber was a perfectionist and that was why I had too wait so long as he made sure the chap before me did not leave his salon with a single hair out of place! I sensed it was not going to be a "quick" cut so told Rob and Ruth to get underway.
20 km's later I finally re-grouped with Rob and Ruth and we continued through to Massey. The Old North Road that we took out of Helensville was probably the busiest road we have ridden on the TA so far. From Massey through to the City were basically on cycle way beside the motorway. Paul met me en-route and it was good to once again be riding with him. Our route to "One Tree Hill" had us heading through Mt Eden and it was at this point that we became separated from Rob and Ruth as we made the green light and they didn't. We turned in to Stokes Road and pulled up and waited for them to catch us up again. And we waited, and waited. I decided to give them a call and caught Rob while he was riding so we didn't speak to much but I gathered they were in Mt Eden and underway. After a bit more of a wait Paul and I decidied they must have varied off the route so I sent them a text saying I'll meet them at the top of One Tree Hill. At the steepest section of the road up One Tree Hill I saw I got a text from them and one thing I don't do is stop to look at texts when heading up a steep Hill. At the top once I gathered my breath I got my phone and checked the text only to find Rob and Ruth had headed up to the top of "Mount Eden". Mount Eden I found out at this time is not the same place as One Tree Hill! Mt Eden was meant to be the official photo checkpoint as per the "TA Book". As the TA Book is mostly filled with veryy deatiled turn by turn instructions I haven't bothered reading it - preferring to work mostly from the GPS files for the Garmin!
Learnings from this are discuss the mapped route in detail with the team beforehand and when travelling together stick together and keep to the route unless all in the party know of the deviation.
I now know my Auckland geography a lot better and have pics of Auckland from two of it's great landmarks.
Shelley and Paul's hospitality is wonderful and I was treated to a fantastic curry for dinner.
Again another top day.
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