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We had a good rest and woke early at 6:00. Got packed up and hit the trail again. 20 km (12 mi) left to go. There were still some ups and downs, but there were also some very good downhill sections with a nice crushed gravel surface and we were able to pick up some speed.
Still some rough sections, too, but nothing as bad as the first two days. We went to the very end of the trail even tho it was 1 km out of our way. Despite the difficulty, we finished the whole trail, carrying 80 lbs of gear and bikes on skinny tires! Do that, MTBers! 😉 Kudos too, to Kona for strong steel bikes, Continental Contact Plus tires for not only holding up under the stress, but really handling the mud and sand very admirably, and Terry Liberator Gel X & Y saddles for saving our behinds.
The end of the trail was a sign but not much else. We were told that would be a place to wash our bikes off and we didn’t see evidence of that anywhere. What we did see was a man named David from a company called Green by Nature. He offered to leave a hose out back at the office in Taumarunui where we were headed to catch the bus South. Needless to say, the bikes were pretty muddy and dirty and needed some attention. It was about 15 mi to Taumarunui partially on a highway, but also on a pretty nice back country road. When we got to town we found Green by Nature and David had come through. We washed our bikes off, talked to the manager a little bit and went into town to find the bus station.
The woman at the i-Site information center was very helpful. She’d call the driver and let him know there were two bikes to load. She also let us know that there was a shower! It cost us $2NZ to get a much-needed wash off (we still had mud on us). Felt like human beings again. After checking in with the bus and our showers, we headed to the Rusty Nail tavern. The tavern is run by Asian Indians and they were very accommodating and friendly. I got a chicken burger and Dana got a fish burger. Both were huge and were excellent — first real food we had since Otorohanga, and of course, some cold, refreshing beer.
The instructions for bikes on the bus was to take off pedals, turn the handlebars, take the wheels off and cover the chain. Probably could have skipped most of that cuz we ended up putting the bikes on top of the spare tire in one of the luggage bays. It was a bit of a rush when the bus came as it was late and the driver wanted to get going so I had to load the two bikes. Dana rushed to get the bags with the rest of our stuff on the bus (it had parked about 50m from the terminal), we climbed on the very crowded bus to Palmerston North.
The bus traversed the mountainous the rain we would have had to have ridden who had gone by bike, and also would have taken three or four days to get to Wellington (and eventually the South Island) versus the 4 hour bus trip. It was a very short ride to the next stop where a bunch of people transferred to the bus to Wellington. It was a holiday on Friday and the buses to Wellington were sold out, thus our destination of Palmerston North which was a far south as we could get.
When we got off the bus, I got the bikes and Dana got the luggage. We found a spot on the grass near the i-Site building and I started putting the bikes back together. There was a festival going on in the park across the street and we were treated to music while working. As I was replacing Dana’s brake pads, a man named Stuart came over and asked if I needed any help with the bike. He quickly realized I knew what I was doing and then just started chatting about bikes (he sold e-bikes) and places to go and ways to get out of town. Pleasant fellow. I got the brakes changed and the bikes reassembled and bags on it and we headed for the hotel we were treating ourselves to after the trials of the Timber Trail.
Our room was huge with plenty of room for us and the bikes. We walked into town to check out the night scene but the sidewalks had been mostly rolled up. We did find a nice bar, had some drinks, and continued our stroll around town and back to the hotel for a good, refreshing, sleep!
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