Day 12 Whanganui to Hunterville to Vinegar Hill- Sleep Deprivation (Updated)

Day 12 Whanganui to Hunterville to Vinegar Hill- Sleep Deprivation

I left feeling fresh after the morning in McDonalds and didn't bother with lunch. Today was only 71 kms on seal so I thought it would be cruisey. I crossed over the river and climbed to the Durie Hill Tower on the steep road because the lift which rises to the top was out of action. I took the obligatory check point photograph and started singing along a nice seal road which immediately got into the countryside and was following the ridges of flowing hills, dipping down and up fairly gentle rises. A man was skinning a sheep on the lean to attached to his house. Some young hornless stags were chasing each other around a deer paddock and practicing their bugling. The neighbours would have been looking for the keys for their gun cabinets and planning for the roar.

I rolled up and over a rise; there was a long sloping dip down and identical slope up the other side. I coasted down preparing to let gravity roll me to a stop as far up the other side I could go. It looked like a nice pitch to walk. Ahead a vehicle with orange flashing lights was crawling along with an outstretched boom spraying the weeds on the berm. The driver was seated on the left and was steering the beam between the plasic road signs. It looked like a bit of local character for a photograph so I began tearing my glove off with my teeth and sped up to pass him in the bottom of the dip. He considerately stopped spraying and paused as I rolled past. I got far enough up the other side to put some distance between us, dropped the bike and began walking backwards up the yellow centre lines trying to get the camera on my mobile fired up. He approached and I snapped off a couple of shots just before he rolled to a stop beside me. I peered in what was the right hand side window and said Gidday. The conversation went something like this;

"Don't you know there is a Covid epidemic?" He was wearing mask, suit, goggles and overalls. 

"You don't have to worry about me mate with all that gear on and I've been in isolation on this bike for two weeks."

"I could have killed you, walking up the road like that."

"You would have done that at the bottom of the dip if you really wanted to. The yellow lines are the safest place on the road. You're not allowed to cross it."

He growled so I continued, "What's your name?"

"Wei" Sounds Chinese, he didn't look it. 

"Wai" Is his name water?

The penny dropped, it was a hot day, oh that "Why?"

"Because I want to take to take your photograph. I like to know who I am photographing for my blog".

He growled again and began ranting on about Health and Safety so I snapped my shot, jumped on my bike and was gone before he could get after me with that boom and cause some serious damage.

I must add here that usually I think of the witty rejoinder about a week later and regret not coming up with it at the time but for some reason the open road and all the comedians I had already encountered seemed to have sharpened my reflexes. I was enjoying life. I rolled on and the day got hotter. I bowled through Fordell 13.7 kms in and kept going until I stopped for a photograph of six armed electricity powerlines striding across the open countryside and had a munch and a gargle. I dropped over the rise and down 200 metres in about 1.5 kms. The rusty safety pin holding the orange fluro waistcoat I have been wearing for years had snapped this morning and was snapping in the breeze. I was cracking downhill at around 55kms and coming into a sharp turn. My prescripton glasses-were they still in the handmade inside pocket? I carefully took a hand off the wheel and retrieved the flapping coat, the glasses were gone and I wasn't climbing back 200 metres to look for them.

Watch out for these signs

Onward to Hunterville

I cruised along and saw a gentleman testing a theory about keeping the fingers pointing outwards before braking on a motorcycle. He was doing braking tests and had a white tape across the road and was painting his stop lines at various speeds and ways of braking. He had estabished his method of braking. He had bought the machine for $200, a grand deal. Reason? the scratch along the exhaust.

Day 12 continued...

I am thinking of compiling a play list for my next TA. 

Today's was:

'Down under' by Men at Work

' ....buying bread from a man in Brussells,

     He was 6 foot four and full of muscle,

      he just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich...'

I told the bloke on the bike my name and he said he wouldn't forget it because his ex son in law was a John Arnold.

I cruised on beginning to realize the water situation was looking grim. I had only had a coffee at McDonalds instead of the usual litre before leaving because of the neighbors and now it was hot. Looking back at the Garmin I climbed 924 metres, the average temperature was 30 degrees and it got up to 36 degrees. I biked 83 kms and apparently had no stress-free moments. Then Geoff Crawford of Whangarei appeared noiselessly on my shoulder and startled me with a 'gidday'. He stayed alongside long enough to tell me he had come from Pipiriki. Pipiriki! It took me all day to get to Whanganui from there and here he was 40 kms past there, barely sweating at it was only about 2.30. He communicated that he was staying in the pub in Hunterville and disappeared.

The day got hotter then I ran into an area which had been flooded and the road ruined. It was covered in boulders and I needed a break anyway. A bale of straw still half wrapped in green plastic lay folornly in the creek bed. Green plastic lay hanging on the barbed wire fence which had been dragged over and underwater. A shed had toppled over. It was a mess. In the middle of the road about 5 metres into the rough was a fancy torch taillight, hah, no surprises guessing where that came from. Geoff was the only rider I saw all day. I would track him down and give it back.

I struggled on getting thirstier and hotter. The last hill was a killer with no berm and all manner of vehicles

thrashing up it. I had barely seen a vehicle all day but on this road it was all on. I had no other option but to walk. My heart maxed out at 128 and my mobile had stopped working because it was too hot. I rolled down the hill and stopped at the pub for a lemonade. He wasn't there so I continued across SH 1 to the Station hotel. There Geoff was, refreshed after arriving hours earlier, showered and having a jug. I asked him if he had ever played cricket. He replied in the affirmative so I tossed him his torch. He said words to the effect that he was pleased and he would shout me a jug. Now at that moment I was about ready to drink the water out of a sheep trough but couldn't find one. I wisely resisted one in the first pub because I intended going on 8 or ten kms to Vinegar Hill and camping, but free beer! I nodded and a jug and 7 ounce appeared. It felt like I was drinking out of a thimble so I amped up the pace. A woman TA rider appeared in the bar. Geoff's mate, Richard Bleaky, had blown up with cramps and needed help. A Craig Phillips of Phillips Transport had stopped in to get the fertilizer he had been delivering to topdressing planes all day was having a gargle to get the dust out of his tonsils. He overheard and tossed Geoff the keys to his Ute and told him to go get his mate. (The kindness of strangers). Geoff was gone in a flash. 

What was I to do? It would be impolite to leave after being treated to free beer and not reciprocate. I settled into a second jug, a slightly slower pace this time. Geoff soon returned his mate was tucked into bed and I got him a jug. Things started to get a bit fuzzy so I left to have a meal on the main highway. While I was waiting I wandered across the road to the 24 hrs Service Station I had seen earlier. I intended buying some baked beans for dinner and something for breakfast. It was 24 hours all right but only for credit card fuelling. Oops. I improvised and ordered a couple of aloo pakora...fried potato balls. They were huge. I saw Jacko and mumbled at him then headed into the gloom down SH1 towards Vinegar Hill. I was on familiar territory having driven this road dozens of times. At night on a bike it is a slightly different matter. The night drivers are getting going, some swapping loads at Turangi then returning to Auckland or Wellington

The roads are quiet, the traffic cops mainly tucked up at home in bed. They can see approaching vehicles miles ahead from their perches metres above the ashphalt. It is exhilarating when they pass, politely, way across on the other side of the road because they can see forever. They roar past in a hot breath of sound, warmth and light from dozens of orange lights, warning motorists how long they are. The backwash blows me forward. Trucks coming the other way blow me backwards and sideways. Some are in convoys, they flick their right indicators at each other as they pass: knights of the road.

When they pass and it is quiet I can see up across the Milky Way to the beginning of time.

There is a wonderful Ray Bradbury short story about time warps and two medieval knights meeting a dragon which is in fact a steam train. I can reimagine it here or up on the Desert Road where ancient Maori used to avert their eyes from the sacred, tapu, smouldering mountains. I imagine two warriors on a night like this challenging an articulated Mac or Kenworth. You should read the story. It's probably online. I reach the Vinegar Hill campsite. It's so dark now I can't see or judge where the ground and step off the bike, and walk away just as it crashes to the ground.