Day Three: May 15th

How do I describe day three-on our pushbike ride!

Long
Tiring

Well it wasn’t all bad…..The trip from Waihi back down to Peroa was much better than going up.

I really did not believe Marc in my exhaustion yesterday when he told me that it would be better on the rail trail returning on our journey but in my weariness and after my fall I did not believe him….( mind you I was too cross to believe he was right…) but you know he was actually right..( don’t tell him that!). Heading down the rail track was so much easier. The pair of happy bikers in our wet weather gear (yes, it was raining again) actually  sailed down most of it – well I did get off a few times and walked the demon bike down the steep sections of track as I was not going to let him buck me off in the downhill run again. I was keeping him in control – no I was not going to be up-ended again today by anything!

Interestingly the gorge tunnel that we came through the day before was actually so much fun going back down – although I had to keep putting my brakes on as we were definitely going downhill in a deep wet dark tunnel and the bike kept wanting to accelerate into the darkness …  it was scary but also fun . (I had lost a lot of my confidence after my second fall the day before!) What was even more curiouser (as Alice would have put it), the hole at the other end of the tunnel was definitely lower visually  heading east ….and maddening deceiving because the day before, when a red faced rider peered through the dark hole towards the west – it did not look uphill or hard at all but it was !  The day before, you did not realise how much uphill there was because you were constantly grunting and grinding the gears and the teeth and jaw it to match! At that point of time nothing was going to convince me it was going to be a better ride back! But true to his word, the first part of our third day of riding was, as Marc predicted, easier as you could actually feel you were going down… ….ah yes…down!!!!!!!!!

But alas as the story goes, of course it was not all plain sailing down the hill….

The motel in Waihi where we had stayed was not only on the outskirts of town, it also did not include breakfast. The cafes were all in the centre of town up a significant hill from where our motel was and there was no way I was going to add extra kms and ANOTHER hill to my bruised legs and arms…so in our bright wisdom we decided that we would head back to Peroa but  stop at the train station café at Waikino for breakfast…which was only about 9kms ride…after yesterday…- easy!

WRONG.- not opened.

So we then  decided we would then stop at the winery  estate for coffee..another 10kms or so,
WRONG -not opened.
…so two hours later a little hungry, we ended back in Peroa – the first 25kms ridden under our tightening belts.

Jackets now off…our logical wisdom kicked in again and indicated the café where we thought we could eat breakfast was actually in town but the rail trails met at the edge of town. Do we travel the extra distance into Peroa for a meal and then have to ride out again? Or do we skip riding the extra distance and head on towards Te Aroha …..(that was the next 23 kms+ journey ) as roughly 10kms into  the ride, the trail guide book said there was a Café with scones and cream and jam to ‘die for’. We would stop and have breakfast there. YUM!
Yes, let’s go! Andiamo!!
Onward, forward

Now let me tell you about this part of the ride.

Imagine a rail way track and parallel sleepers.
Imagine the thick gravel underneath it
Take away the sleepers and what do you have left…???
Gravel….thick gravel
And that’s what we ploughed through on this part of the ride.
And once more, the track slowly climbed….and climbed…and climbed some more….

But that was okay, The scones and coffee were calling us, beckoning us to come closer….come to us at the depot café…. I could  hear them calling me…and it would indeed make this part of the track bearable as we could stop and savour the flavour and relish the time ……

WRONG,…WRONG..and more WRONG
NOT OPENED!
Really?
REALLY??
REALLY?????

NOT HAPPY JAN
Who’s Jan? Forget JAN…
NOT HAPPY LYNDELL

By this time, it is about three half hours or so into our peddling journey without anything in our stomachs since the hamburger of last night ….and this little black duck was not feeling very pleased at all…in fact her emotions were getting rather stronger than ‘not pleased’. Not only was the track so hard to plough through, we were sure they had placed fresh gavel there just to keep us fit! My knees were screaming to me again as we took off once more, on this boring part with no views, thick gravel and what….NO FOOD! NO COFFEE!!!

Well, Marc had conveniently bought an extra bar of Cadbury’s chocolate the previous evening. At the closed gate of the café – the gate displaying the “Closed” sign -he tried to lift my spirits by bringing out the chocolate bar and trying to entice a smile with that panacea for all ills, particularly feminine moods – chocolate. It worked a little.

WE ploughed on and you know what, my darling husband is singing beside me and talking about the book he was reading, I knew what he was doing…But I could have thrown that book at him at that point of time. Especially when I saw a sign indicating we still had 15kms to go!! That seemed like an impossible further distance. We pull up at a shelter – drink some water whilst inhaling the ‘lovely aroma’ coming from an adjacent silage pit that was being dug up (for those who do not know what a silage pit smells of – it is the ‘sweet smell of semi-decomposed vegetable matter’, use your imagination. The sign says 6kms to go. I had read the earlier sign wrong. Maybe I could make it – maybe …

This was not what the guide book had talked about, this was not what the last part of the rail trail was supposed to be like, it was supposed to be fun and enjoyable…really…when everything is closed?
Ah- the remaining portions of our one block of chocolate to share…breaking each piece, savouring its flavour, licking the lips……ahhh

We move on, we ride..
Ride?
Plough more like it
Ride
Ride
Slower
Slower
Slow
Ah- land, I see land…
We are here
Shops
Food
i SMELL COFFEE!!!!!!

And then there is steep, in my exhausted state, vertical uphill to get to the café!!!!!!!!!!!
You’ve got to be kidding!
I get off the bicycle. Bowed but not beaten. I PUSH that damn bicycle up THAT HILL. Marc comes back to help me. I refuse! I am going to FINISH this journey. AND I DO!!
Three days .. AND 110 kms later along a pushbike Rail Trail Journey, I am here sitting in a cafe
With coffee in hand!
And an extremely  VERY PROUD smile!