Ruth was not looking forward to the 50km day which was a bit of a let-down for me. After her stunning efforts of the previous day I had thought that a new battery inspired Ruth had evolved.
Instead she kept asking me how far we had ridden and how far there was to go. Each time I answered she implied that I was being a little creative with my maths. I did not bother to tell her to look at her own odometer because She does not “do tech”.
However, her mood started to lift as the day warmed and she realised that this was another great ride. The mountain was ever changing as was the immediate landscape. The hillocks (Ruth now accepts that this is a word) and boulder strew paddocks are evidence of a violent volcanic past while numerous streams added to the vista. It soon became evident that we had been climbing again as we could now look down to the coast and Tasman Sea.
The kilometres were disappearing at an amazingly fast rate, something new to us as normally, the walking of our bikes up hills made our overall pace pedestrian.
I mentioned to Ruth that we were going so well that she could probably use the battery for the rest of the ride – she did.
The weather forecast for tomorrow was for rain so we decided to visit our next scheduled garden today. In fact, we had been so successful in ‘killing the kms’ that we were going to be far too early for our check-in.
Apart from being stunning, the other aspect of the Taranaki gardens is that they are free to enter. The Hollard Gardens were even better, they offered complimentary tea and coffee. We settled back into arm chairs and watched the old family photos on the development of the garden.
A short peddle, well coast, down the road had us at our overnight lodgings in the Kaponga Pub. I waddled ( a little chaffing) into the bar in my full-battle-dress. Fortunately, the bar was empty thus saving any locals from choking on their beer. The publican eventually appeared from the ether and after a little confusion over our booking and having convinced him that I was’t Daft Vader, we finally settled into our room. We later found out that there was only one other couple staying. Not only that, but when we wandered through the place the next morning it was deserted. There were no resident staff. It was another interesting experience to add to our growing list of those.
Our post cycle wrap that evening revealed that Ruth had actually really enjoyed the ride. Mmm, I seem to recall a similar response the previous night. By tomorrow morning and with rain falling I suspect there will be less enthusiasm. I gave her the good news, it was a really short ride.
I agreed on her assessment of the ride – it was ‘up-there’ with some of our other bicycle adventures.
Adventures on the wrong side of 60 