Taumaranui to Whakahoro

Dust and more dust covers today’s ride. After 55 km of dusty gravel road our legs were thicker and heavier than when we started. Showers and hot water are amazing inventions. Especially during the 30 degree heat of the day.

Again it was great to ride through sheep and cattle hill country farming country and it seemed most of the farmers were out either moving sheep along the road or working with the sheep in the yards.

Our two lunch stops along the way had us eat our peanut butter sandwiches and cheese slices followed by Jet Plane chasers. I might add that these were the first Jet Planes that I have consumed my entire journey.

45 years ago as a young Valuer I was down this Valley and this is the first time back since (which is not surprising). The memory for the visual is not as good as the memory for the names as I remember “Reteruke” and “Wades Landing” – however with what appears to have been quite a bit of changed land use in the intervening years I guess I can be forgiven. There were probably more farms and less forestry back then and I am sure there was nothing at the end of the Road other than the farm and maybe the Old School House. Today there I “Blue Duck Station” that clearly appears to be far more tourist focussed than farming. Each of the old homes on the Station now have names and are surrounded by 10 – 20 four berth cabins – the house becomes the kitchen, bathroom and living space for that cluster. At the end of the Road is the Blue Duck Café tied in to it all. That no longer surprises me.

We are again looking at our plans for the next few days as all these “short” days have us now probably a couple of days behind our original thinking – not that that is a bad thing as we estimated if we had done yesterday the ride we originally over dinner back in Christchurch thought we would be doing it would have had us getting here at about 9:00 PM at night! Planning is not to difficult when you have Connectivity to the outside world however once you are off grid and in the back and beyond with no cell phone or internet reception it is made considerably more difficult. Just as well we have our route well mapped out through to Whanganui as we’re picking there must be some connection to the outside world near there.