Day 21 Back on the road. Palmerston North to Ekatahuna

Leaving the Manor

8am. Strong wind and showers were forecast for today, but we've had breakfast and packed and the ground is dry. There is a bit of wind, but nothing like last night when it was really strong. We are on the road again, it's been a long time :-).

Plenty of traffic as we ride across town, but the cycleways are very good here and it's not a problem. We cross the bridge, follow a guy along a cycleway and find ourselves at Massey University - Where we should not be - I studied our route this morning but did not remember it well enough. A kilometer back, we take the correct turn and ride up a very nice, quiet road. A pathway looks likely, we take it and a "which way?" guess brings us to a great view. We are looking down on the giant art work beside the Manawatu river, we rode past this when exploring on our second day here. It looks fantastic from here and the view up the river is pretty good too. Chat with a local on a walk, check our map and carry on.

Deer we saw in someone's "back yard" still in suburbia

Our route takes to SH57, not too busy, but leaves it at the first chance, taking us to Poison hill Road. I don't like the sound of that! Yes, it is steep. Worse, a kilometer later we drop back down again, wasting the effort climbing, before we join the Pahiatua Track road. Following SH57 all the way to Pahiatua track would have avoided unnecessary climb. (I'd still pick the back road, having the road (mostly) to ourselves is a totally different, and better feel)

Pahiatua Track starts climbing but it's reasonably gradual and I am feeling strong - probably because the wind has increased and is directly behind us. For this I am truly grateful. We take a few photos from a vantage point half way up, the local we met earlier said that on a clear day both Ruapehu and Taranaki are visible. That's not today unfortunately. Riding again, the wind turbines on the ridge look high and far away, but the grade stays reasonable and with the wind behind us we get there without too much effort.

Some wind turbines are close now. I find them awesome. I'd like to get closer... An access road on the right is the answer to my wish. It has a gate, but that is open and no signs are visible. A short steep climb takes us to the top of the ridge. Very windy here. The turbine blades have a slight backward curve I had not noticed before - likely the they are bent back by the strong wind. Standing 20m from the base of one turbine we can hear and feel the blades rotate past us - palpable power!. We also feel the cold wind - time to go.

Down from the Tararuas onto flat land. The wind is still behind us and riding effortless. We should have passed a road on the right by now, stop and check, yep - we are on that road. How did I miss the intersection? We can go back, or follow this road around a big semicircle. Not much difference now we have come this far, and this is a nice road, we carry on. A machine is harvesting maize. After seeing so much maize growing we have both wondered how it is harvested. I thought the cobs were removed and handled separately and the rest made into charf (chopped up small) but that is not what is happening here. The harvester machine cuts the maize at ground level, shreds everything, and fires the result into a following truck. Fast and brutal. Quite a bit misses the truck - in another field I see ducks picking over this, for the missed grain I guess.

We are at Pahiatua, it was easier getting here than I had expected. Partly I still respect (fear) hills too much and quiet a lot because of the helping hand on our backs most of the way here. Is there a place to have coffee? Yes - several! The one we choose is busy too.

The town is bigger than we expected, the houses and shops mostly well cared for, this feels a nice place from our short visit. SH2 goes through Pahiatua North to South along the Mangatainoka river valley. We are going West to East - back up a hill. At the top of the hill a - roller coaster ride! Wow. We pull into the open driveway to take a photo - and have to move a minute later when the owner drives in. He seems amused and happy we are documenting (and promoting) his park.

Over the hill we drop into another valley, follow it for for a while then climb out. The wind is stronger now, at times it accelerates me up the hill! Down again and we are in the Mangaone valley, heading south east now, so the north westerly wind is not so much help.

Curious South Devon cows we met along the way

The river has become small. I keep expecting the next turn to bring us to the climb out of the valley head, but no, the valley keeps carrying on. (This is good, we are slowly and effortlessly climbing, the more we do now the less there will be at the end of the valley :-) 12 kilometers from Ekatahuna, still in Mangaone valley, not far to go, we will be there soon... The road turns to the west and suddenly we are riding directly into the wind. 22km/hr quickly becomes 18, then 15, then 13 - and I'm working for even that!. Maybe we won't be in Ekatahuna so soon. I'm really happy there is a maximum of 10km of this.

Sau Keng stops. "The trike turned off"... And it won't turn on. I check the battery, it's showing nothing. These batteries have never shown nothing before - and Sau Keng said it showed half charge not long ago. This is 'good' I suppose. A battery problem is much preferable to a motor problem. I swap to battery 3, fully charged, and we are on our way again. Thankfully the road takes us closer to the hills and we are largely protected from the wind. Riding is easier again.

Finally, just 5km from Ekatahuna, we leave Mangaone valley (which still continues to our left for as far as I can see) The climb out is long, but not too steep, until just before the end - when we get some of the headwind back too. The last 200m is slow, but it's only 200m, and now it will be downhill to our home for the night.

We reach Ekatahuna are looking at the war memorial - it's quite nicely done - and a heavy shower starts. We had several showers threaten earlier when we were on the road, dark clouds and a few spits, nothing came of them. Now, when it rains, we have shelter :-) Sau Keng takes credit, saying she is mates with the weather gods and the shower passes quickly.

Ekatahuna is smaller and plainer than Pahiatua, but our hotel is friendly, letting us in an hour early, and comfortable. We settle, have a shower and snack, move to the lounge where there is a fire, and Sau Keng plugs in her laptop and gets to work while I organise things for the Go tournament and post to Instagram (i.e. write the draft copy of this blog entry) Later we break for dinner, the restaurant is surprisingly busy, our meal is good and a generous size - more than we really want as our snack earlier was also generous. Back to work.

Statistics

Distance: 77.5 km

Climbed: 916 m

Time: 4:40