Day 10 Home!

I can sleep in and start late today :-) but no, I wake at 8am anyway. This is late I suppose, on several days we were already riding now. We have a leisurely breakfast, chat a bit, hug Yvonne and Angela goodbye and are finally on the road at 10am - A decadent time!

Again we have a beautiful day. Google recommends we ride on East Coast Bays Road - No thanks! - We'll take Beach Road, we rode there once before and the traffic was slow and relaxed.

The traffic is good again, there are quite a few other cyclists on the road and everyone seems to be enjoying the morning - nice vibes.

Behind Milford beach. Such a perfect day

Beach Rd has a few hills - more than I remembered - but they are not on the scale of the hills we have ridden the last few days. I ride the first couple 'aggressively' but they keep coming and I soon go back to a humble crawl for the climbs.

It is very nice riding despite sharing roads with traffic. We are just cruising but we are at Takapuna already, sooner than we expected. We are stopped at traffic lights, across the intersection is a sign "Cycles only". Takapuna has changed so much since Sau Keng worked here, the town center is pedestrian and bike friendly and this morning teaming with people. Nice!

Continuing to Devonport, Lake road is busy but we have a cycle track, and after a while we turn off to ride behind the beaches. Just 11:35, we are at Devonport, which is also teaming with people and is a good place for coffee and light lunch.

We buy our ferry tickets, full price again as I left my senior citizen Gold card at home. The ferry is busy "Up to 6 bicycles" the sign says - there are more than that onboard already, but we are let on without problem.

The harbour is a picture with plenty of boats about. The short cruise suits our mood. Getting off is trickier than getting them on, I wheel my bike off and return for the tricycle. Pushing from behind I can't reach the handle bars to steer it over the narrow gangplank and it does not want to go straight. I get it off, but not elegantly, probably I should have ridden it.

Home feels so close :-) We have come here on our bikes several times before and know the way well. We cruise along and the landmarks come so quickly. Orakei basin and the super cycle path. The climb to College Rd. Glen Innes. The northern Tamaki river cycle track. Panmure bridge. The Rotary walk on our side of the Tamaki river. Highland Park!

We stop and buy an A6 notebook size diary to replace the half kilo diary Sau Keng took north. Just 500m now (including a hill). We are home.

Wow, the first part of our ride is over and we are not riding again for almost a week! We are both very well, no injuries, no chaffing or even sore muscles. Our only problem was somewhat self inflicted, neither of us thought to but sunscreen on our lips (chapstick etc) We both have had cold sores as a consequence since about day 3. They are recovering now and I had to buy a new chapstick as we have been using so much. We feel much more confident about the ride as a whole now and from our experience we have identified a few things we did not use and can leave behind - so we will be a little lighter next leg.

The bikes need a clean and service. I have to find a way to absolutely secure my panniers - they have a locking mechanism, but twice taking a bump at speed has bounced one of the panniers off. Other than that the bikes and associated gear has performed very well and given no problems. Well done bike, trike, and us :-)

It will be nice to rest for a few days.

Statistics

Distance: 47.0 km

Climbed: 472m

Time: 3:57

Weird - It reckons we dived to -400m, somewhere near the ferry building!