The weather forecast was not supporting us today!

(Okato, New Zealand, 25th of January 2017)

On today’s bike ride we had planned to see the volcano Taranaki close up and to get to a town high up on The Surf Highway that we have read should be a fantastic bike path. However, the day was not as pleasant as we had imagined, and Mount Taranaki did not go to see all day because it was covered with clouds.

When we started at nine o’clock in the morning, it just drizzled but it quickly got worse. The wind was definately not our friend, it quickly started blowing straight at us with wind currents of about 20 m / s. I can tell you that to cycle in the drizzle and with headwinds is very stressful after a while, especially if you also have a bike full of packing. Occasionally, it was so bad that it was difficult to keep upright on the bike, and some hills were difficult to get up when the wind made the bikes almost go backwards. At one of the hills Johan cycled beforehand and when I got up at the top I found him standing in some kind of bunker-like box, probably a tractor yard or similar. We were really hungry and completely soaked and decided to stay and have lunch in the little shed.

Our biggest problem was keeping up the heat because all our clothes were so wet. We packed up and put on all warm clothes we had (not so many) and started our little portable stove hoping that this would give us some heat but we did not get much warmer. After eating our sandwiches and drinking two cups of tea / coffee, we decided to decided to travel on, also though it had not stopped raining or blowing, but after all, we only had 20 kilometers left to our final destination, Okato.

You may wonder why we did not just stop by the road and went to a cafe or a hotel and then I can tell you that it does not work like that in New Zealand. When you leave a city in New Zealand and arrive in the countryside there is absolutely no civilization until you approach the next city, often at least 50 km away. A bit desolate and boring sometimes and especially today when we really could have needed somewhere to warm us up. After cycling 61,2 km, we finally arrived at Okato and Stony River Hotel – today’s goal. A super nice lady with German refraction met us outside the little yellow hotel that really looked inviting. So glad we were to finally arrive – we really longed for a hot shower! We hung all our wet clothes up in our little hotel room and they covered every little place from curtain rails to tables and chairs. Unfortunately, we hung some of our clothes on an electric element we had covered with a towel … they melted a little bit so one of my bicycle tops is no longer spotty but more flaming … Many curses later I had got used to this sad fact and we decided to order some little more bike sweaters online for future use.

Of course, it stopped raining and blowing when we came to Okato and we decided to go for a walk. A soda and a bag of cheese doodles were the purchases after walking 2 km very straight forward to what must be the village center where we found a grocery store and a few cafes.

/Christel

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