midlifecycle: Day 15 Notes

Holy crap, I’m already 1/3 of the way through my trip, time is going so quickly. Today was a great day full of wind when I left Eketahuna. The trip to Greytown this was a mixture of gravel and sealed roads over 70km which I did in 3:28. This 3:28 was slow for an open road section which was mainly due to the wind. At times I was pushing hard on the flats doing 12km per hour, but the highlight was doing 25km per hour up hill on a touring bike, the wind was strong at my back. The road names are classic, I had to go down south on north road which then turns to west road and a 90 degree turn from north road is south road, go figure. Lucky I did not pay too much attention to the signs. Had a coffee in Masterton with a ginger crunch, first espresso in 800+ kilometres it was so good. When I got to Greytown which was supposed to be the stop over place, I just did not feel like stopping, I was feeling good and wanted more cycling today. Greytown looked like a neat little place but move on I must. So I decided to do an afternoon session from Greytown to Featherston then onto the Rimutaka rail trails. I did half the trail and then backtracked on SH2 to our stop over point for the night the Kaitoke Regional Park campground. This added another 58km for the day making it a 128km day. In short - an awesome day. The Rimutaka rail trail is another awesome trail. There are four old rail tunnels to go though, no LED lights in these tunnels and you cycle in the dark trusting there is nothing in front of you. I have to confess I had to walk up a small section of the trail; I think this was called Siberia Gully but not 100% sure. We managed to move the ferry ticket forward a day and so head to the South Island tomorrow.