Tuesday December 24, 2013

Today we woke up early as we knew we had a couple of big hills to climb.  It was cold and very windy when we got up.  We even struggled to get the tent down, without it blowing away!

We started at 7:15.  Our first major climb was at 10 kms and yes I had to walk part of it.  The second major climb was at 22 kms and I was really struggling when our first “road angel” showed up.  I was walking once again, Ralf was ahead and still cycling.  A farmer called Joe stopped in front of me and asked if I needed a ride to the top.  I didn’t hesitate.  He put my bike in his trailer and off we went as we came up behind Ralf he joked and said “He seems to be doing o.k. shall we wave”  As we passed I stuck my head out the window and asked if he needed a lift.  It threw of his whole momentum so we stopped and put his bike on the trailer as well and off we went to the top of this hill.  I can drop you of at Taraweka Road if you like, that is where I am turning of to pick up some piglets.  I know we should have let him let us off at the top of the hill, but we didn’t, we carried on to Taraweka Road cutting out another couple of hills and about 17 kms.  Then it literally was downhill all the way to Napier.

We stopped at a small café with a South African theme for lunch.  We were given advice on the best route to take into Napier.  A 10.5 km cycle path along the beach all the way into Napier.

When we go to Napier we had to find our hotel.  We had booked into the Best Western for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but it wasn’t in Napier it was in a suburb of Napier called Taradale 10 ks outside of Napier.  It is a nice hotel and it will be nice to have a couple of days to regroup.  We will call home for Christmas and then we will start again on Boxing Day.

We are now heading to Wellington, should be there in about 5 or 6 days.  We met a really nice couple (Emily and James) yesterday who live in Wellington (originally from Canada) and have offered us a place to stay when we get to Wellington.  How nice is that.