Tuesday January 21, 2014

We were up and away at a good time, I knew today was going to be hilly and I wanted to get started early in case the weather changed against us.  It was a cool day, I even wore my liner gloves to start of with, we wore our wind breakers for most of the day.  The hills started about 10ks outside of Ranfurly, gradual climbs and rewarding downhills.

We knew there would be few services between Ranfurly and Palmerston and had packed a picnic lunch.  However, there were few picnic sites, so Ralf picked this little pull-in as a place to stop!!

There is a lot of this 1080 poison being used throughout New Zealand!  Primarily to control the possum population.

At about the 60 k mark the wind picked up and we were battling the wind and the hills.  I remember on GOBA last year a young man asking me hills or headwinds – always hills at least you can see the end of them.  Or may be not, it was a day of constant up and down, most of the time we managed to get half way up the other side of a hill before having to peddle but sometimes we had to work at it.

It started to get cool and the last 10 ks of the ride were tiring.

When we arrived in Palmerston there was no official iSite and even worse no camp site, so we had to break the piggy bank and stay in a motel.  It was great, it had a little kitchenette with a stove and oven, and all the equipment included.  We did a bit of shopping and created a lovely meal with a bottle of wine to wash it down.

Typical Palmerston building.  There was a also a church with a cement steeple, I have never seen a steeple on a church made out of cement before.