Day 9 Notes

The second day on the trails and it was a long day at the office; 8:15 minutes on the bike today. In one word awesome. The Timber trail is simply stunning. Its not a fast easy trail and it is in the wop wops but I am so glad I included this trail into my plans. The big thing I have taken out of my past two days of being on the trails is that they are much much slower than the road. When planning you should bank on 10-12km per hour on the grade 3 trails.  My original plan was to go from Pureora to Ongaure which is the full trail however after arriving in Ongaure full of mud ( aka good day out) I decided a quick 23km trip on road to Taumarunui  is nothing to get some place I can wash both me and the bike down.  So off to Taumarunui I cycled. It took me 7:25 min to do 84km then 50 min to do 23km. Road is much faster.   Tomorrow is all road up to Ohakune, 80kmon the road is going to seem like a day off. 

Highlights : The many suspension bridges, the start of the cycle with easy tracks though forest, the many long downhill sections ( not having shocks was a bit tough) , the Ongarue Spiral bush tram was great to cycle through and the countless great views.

Note: there is absolutely no cell phone coverage across the entire trail including the start and end of the trails.

Full gps data here

The start of the timber trail .

A little detour to see an old tractor

Up into the clouds. Up up up.

They do fall.

One of many mud sections. 

First of many swing bridges for the day.

Over I go.

This is a long one.

Half way point.

Swing bridge with rain.

The longest swing bridge.

Onto the old tram rail section.

there is no tuning back, what have i got myself into.

misty mountain.

green side walls from the old tram cuts

A full picture of the cut for the logging train.

that is swing bridge in the background.

One more stop for a pic.

Need my night lights

The spiral tunnel

The end of the spiral tunnel.