Day 20 Makoura Lodge to Palmerston North

6:45am. We planned an early start today because of how slow riding on the gravel road was yesterday - and we have 35km of gravel today. But it's lightly raining so our enthusiasm for an early start is not with us now. It is very comfortable here, what a pity we booked accommodation in Palmerston North tonight.

8am, we are ready to go, rain has stopped, started, stopped again, it's dry now but does not look like it will stay that way. Forecast is occasional showers, improving in the afternoon. The manager drives in as we ride out - we have had the lodge to ourselves all night - chat a bit then ride on.

The road goes down to the river, in a dramatic deep gorge of course. Here the top layer of the plateau all around, at least 10m deep, is a mix of rounded river stones and dirt, not the mudstone we were seeing yesterday. So this area was once a wide river valley, which accumulated at least 10m of stones and dirt, was uplifted to 350m and then had a 60m deep gorge cut through it by this river. How can geology not be interesting!

See the road down there? It goes around the headland and up the valley

Of course we immediately climb the other side, but up another valley, not the gorge wall, so it is a more gentle ascent than I expected - Just as well as I'm not feeling strong yet, it sometimes takes me a while to get going properly. The rain has started again, but is gentle and we keep riding, it's not unpleasant. We slowly climb a long way, almost up to cloud level, fantastic views from up here.

Makoura Lodge in the distance and below us now. Beautiful country

The road follows a ridge, down, up higher, down again then higher yet. Great views every time and the climbs are not a problem :-)

Tarseal! I can relax and look around more now :-)

We are in the hills so it's dry stock - beef cattle and sheep farming here. Eventually the road heads seriously down, we will be trending downwards for the rest of the day but the contour map has several significant dips - more gorges I guess. Still raining, this is not the 'occasional showers' advertised, it has been more like occasional dry periods, and we are getting tired of it - I'm warm enough and comfortable - but wet. On the plateau levels the farms fields are maize, grass - we pass some impressive bulls - or brassicas (for stock). There is a lot of bailage (modern silage... wrapped green grass, with no oxygen it ferments instead of rotting and the cattle love it)

We have been following the Pohangina river for some time. It looks like rain has ended for the day, I'm almost dry now, these light clothes don't take long. Down and up again to cross a tributary with it's own 30m 'mini gorge' and we are in Pohangina. Clean and tidy like Apiti, with a few well kept houses and public buildings. A sign directs us to the park "TA riders, Drinks, Muffins $2, Come on in" We obey, a selection of food has been put out on a park bench. The honesty jar has maybe $40 in it, so we are not the first today. Two eggs, two muffins and a banana, we add $10 to the jar and proceed. Ashhurst is only 20km away.

Now the roads are long and straight. We have a headwind, but the slight downhill compensates, we cruise along at 20km/h, easy riding. Our shadows precede us - the sun is out :-) To our left are the Ruahine ranges, with many wind turbines. They look big from here - they are gigantic - and so many now. Ashhurst is a big town, we find a nice cafe and have a coffee and second lunch :-)

SH3, lots of noisy traffic roaring past us, but it will only be for one kilometer. We turn off at the Manawutu river where a cycleway starts, and go down to look at the river. The Pohangina river joins the Manawutu just 500m upstream. Clean water on a stony riverbed. Very nice. A graffitied sign amuses us. The sign must be for river uses, we don't know who is correct.

This is a lovely track, smooth, well away from the road and quiet... but not so quiet here as we pass a quarry. Sau Keng and I had a tour of a Fulton Hogan quarry in Nelson, so we are interested. This place seems to be working with river gravel - makes sense - and doing good business from the number of trucks we see arriving.

The cycleway has ended :-( A sign says it is to be extended - a track like this, all the way to Palmerston North would be very nice. Google maps shows a number of routes connecting this road to Te Matai Rd, but they must all be farm tracks as we are back at SH3 without seeing any side roads. Two more kilometers on SH3, the shoulder is wide and flat enough for the trike, so it's not a problem - the cycleway is SO much nicer though.

Cycleway?

Te Matai Rd is at right angles to where we want to go but escaping the traffic makes it worthwhile. Now there is a 'cycleway' beside the road - or a caricature of one, in places not much wider than my tyres. I ride it anyway, Sau Keng stays on the road (In fairness the cycleway was probably 2m wide originally but grass has invaded the gravel) Riverside Rd. Now this is a CYCLEWAY. 2.5m wide smooth concrete through parkland beside the river. Excellent.

Finally we leave the cycleway and head into town. Riding though suburbia in the sunshine I find it hard to remember the feel of this mornings riding - it's so different, feels so long ago. Our Air B&B host greets us with a big smile and shows us our room, very clean and new. Home for the next couple of days.

Statistics

Distance: 69.8 km

Climbed: 638 m

Time: 5:05