A day with unexpectedly many hills!

(Stratford, New Zealand, 23rd of January 2017)

We left Whangamomona early in the morning and knew we had a relatively short bike ride in front of us, about 60 km. In addition, we thought we would only have 300 altimeter to climb (as stated in the guidebook) and because we had no internet, we could not plan our trip and know what it really meant. There were many hills this day !! And rain…and wind!

There were at least three Mountains, or “Saddle” as it appears on the signs here, to cross over. I have to say that I was quite tired when we reached the final goal of the day (and had climbed 657 altimeter) and we had to have many stops to eat some candy along the way.

In Stratford we had booked a hotel with some luxury after our days out in the wilderness. We got a nice condo with a spa bath at Amity Court Motel, fortunately located right next to a big and nice supermarket. We bought a lot of food and enjoyed the luxury.

We almost had av view of the Taranaki volcano, which is 10 kilometers away, we just had to go out into the garden to get a look. Unfortunately, the weather was not on our side and the volcano was more or less covered with boring clouds.

/Christel