To read from the beginning, click here.
We got up in the morning, used the facilities and got a tour of Lindsay’s Man Cave. Somewhere in that time, Dana got coffee at the shop down the street. On the way out, I stopped at that same shop, got a breakfast pie, and met two nice women cyclists and started chatting with them. Dana soon joined and we learned Gwen was a semi-retired travelling nurse. She would go back for a number of weeks, just to earn enough to finance here next bike trip. Can’t remember exactly but I think Donna was also a nurse, but fully retired.
I’m going to drift off the ride subject a bit to circle back to the Waiau Hotel. Lindsay and his partner Michelle owned the original hotel but it was damaged in a 2015 earthquake. The government refused to fund rebuilding the historic hotel as it was considered “non-essential” and offered a token grant which infuriated Michelle. They refused the grant and raised money on their own to start rebuilding, but the hotel caught on fire and was razed. They run the current operation in a makeshift, but functional conglomeration of sheds and mobile buildings. There’s a full take on that here.
Today’s ride would be nothing like yesterday’s. We’ll be on a highway for a while, but the route is predominantly down, a welcome change. Shortly after we started out, we heard a friendly beep and hello, and Ad & Anna pulled off the road in front of us. What a surprise! If we hadn’t stopped to talk to Donna & Gwen, we would likely have missed them completely. They were off for a kayaking adventure on their days off. Did I mention Anna is due with their son in about 5 weeks? Amazing couple, and also, I need to correct an earlier post about their cycling trek: It was 4 years that they were on the road, not 1! We hugged and said our goodbyes again, and I thanked Anna for the trail mix she sent with us — it nourished me through those climbing hikes yesterday.
Today’s stop will be in Amberley or Amberley Beach if we have the gumption to go 6 extra miles (which also adds more on tomorrow). On the way to Amberley, Ride With GPS (via Google) routed us to a 3 stream channel. Rather than go retrace our steps and spend any more time on RT 1, we decided to ford across. The last stream was too deep to walk the bikes through, so it was portage time. We took off all the bags and shuttled them and the bikes across to the other bank. All in all, it took about a half hour to get across.
We did get to Amberley, and Dana got us a room at the Amberley Hotel! Yay! No camping tonight! We had a drink at the bar, walked around the town, and had dinner at the only restaurant open later than 8. It was run by an “American” woman (well, she was born in LA, but the family moved to NZ when she was 2). Good meal and nice conversations, followed by a leisurely walk back to a nice, clean, warm bed.
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