Our mental toughness and love of the back-roads have been sorely tested!

I’m currently sitting inside the beautiful Lake Waikaremoana Information Centre building, which has the fire going as it’s rather chilly outside and it’s raining.  The timber panelling on the outside has been burnt to give it an old natural look.  Because of the rain Sari and I decided to stay another day here and leave tomorrow for Rautahuna.

Since leaving the flat cycle ways of Napier where we spent a couple of days R & R, we have been seriously challenged.  Our love of the back roads and the roads less travelled have tested us physically and mentally.  Fortunately both Sari and I are similiar in that when the going gets challenging we can find a way to have a laugh at the situation we are in, always find a positive and to date “have not thrown our toys out of the play pen”.

Everyday since Napier the hills have got longer and steeper, one of the gravel roads has been unrideable, and the sealed roads radiating incredible heat.  On Monday we had a particularly challenging day.  We’d spent the night on the edge of Lake Putere, approximately 20 kms from Rapunga; delightful little lake tucked away in the middle of nowhere.  As we sat eating our delicious dehydrated dinner outside our tents, Sari made the comment “this camp site is so much better than last night, there are no other campers and no noise”.  That was all to change when logging trucks started travelling past our quiet camp site at 3 am!!  We could hear the trucks changing gears as they descended down the long twisty road, and then past our camp site, the ground vibrating and creating clouds of dust.  A truck came past about every 15 minutes, just enough time to doze off again before that old familiar sound of another truck coming! At about 5.30 am we decided enough was enough, let’s get up and getting going.

The first thing Sari said to me that morning was “what do those trucks remind you off?”  I knew instantly what she was referring to as I’d had the same thoughts.  In Laos in 2006 Sari and I were on another cycling adventure when I’d ‘thrown my toys out of the play pen’. I was exhausted and informed Sari,  “I’m not cycling anymore today, we’re staying here and that is that”.   Unbeknown to us trucks drove through that tiny village all night long – it was horrendous and we hardly slept a wink.  We both had a good laugh about that memory.  

There are gravel roads and gravel roads

So far we’ve experienced a variety of gravel roads:  firm based roads with little loose gravel – great for riding; roads with corrugations, pots holes and lots of loose metal; and then there is the newly heavily metalled road with larger pieces of stone and no clear driving lanes. This is what we struck Monday morning. There was no way we could ride down the road let alone try and ride up the seemingly never ending hill. 

Our day got harder and harder, I guess when you walk 4 kms pushing a bike up hill it does tend to zap your energy level.  Luckily for both Sari and I we always manage to find the funny side of things; neither of us ‘throw our toys out of the playpen’, we can always find a positive – though at times it takes some finding; and we know you just have to get on with it and get it done. In that sense we are lucky we both have a similar perspective ‘when the going gets tough, there is no baling out’.    

We were thankful the country side was spectacular – always a good excuse to stop and take in the views, appreciate our surroundings and be thankful for what our bodies are capable of achieving.  We were surrounded by beef and sheep farms, the largest holding being the Landcorp block of Panekiri Station.  Of course after every up there is always a down and vice versa; we were blessed with one very long descent to the main road to Waikaremoana –  oh, we had worked hard for this – let’s enjoy it!!

Little village called Tuai

We finally made it to a little village called Tuai where we hoped we could either camp or have a cabin.  We called in at a place called “Lake Lodge” about 1 km off the main road to Lake Waikaremoana.  A young Maori woman opened the glass sliding door and said “you two look as though you could do with a nice cold drink, come inside and I’ll give you one”.  The water tasted delicious and we ended up staying in one of their self-contained units.  They provided us with a basket of goodies so we could cook ourselves a dinner of fresh vegetables.  It’s those small things that we appreciate: the hot shower – finally I could wash my sweaty hair; the electric jug; good bed; clean sheets; fresh vegetables; the list goes on.  We thought we had come to heaven!

15 km to Lake Waikaremoana

This should be a breeze – or so we thought.  It was raining, the gravel road was muddy, pot holed with many annoying corrugations – another words – bloody hard riding.  We’d been peddling for 2 hrs and only covered 7 kms when Blair, a born and raised Tuhoe resident (plenty of tattoos and one front tooth missing) took pity on us and picked us up in his truck and dropped us off at the Lake Waikaremoana Holiday Park.  He was our hero for the day and with such a positive attitude, as do all the locals we’ve meet working around here.  There is something special happening up here (involving people and environment) and I feel privileged to be experiencing it. 🙂 

Our route from Napier

Relaxing time in Lake Waikaremoana Holiday Park

What a fabulous place to stay, the facilities here are excellent and very relaxing. There are many short walks you can do around the holiday park here.  We’ve walked to Lake Waikareiti and Papakorito Falls.

Found these thoughts in the communal kitchen – what do you think?

Tomorrow Friday we cycle off to Rautahuna (where we’ve booked accommodation) whatever the weather, so we’re hoping for less wet weather!!  

Thank you for your feedback, till next time, Goldcard Gal 🙂