Day 7

Day 7: Matamata to Mangakino- I didn't think I was going to carry on this morning. An alarm in the next unit went off in the middle of the night and the buzz went for about 20 minutes. In the morning when I spoke to two guys from another unit they hadn’t heard anything so maybe it was down the back somewhere When I got up this morning I also had the wobbles. I think the big problem was smashing out 120ks yesterday. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself and after having a shower and washing all my gear I thought I’d ride 6 or 7 kms into Matamata. I intended to buy a whole chicken from the Countdown but by the time I found Countdown it was just about closing and they had already taken the chickens away. I was really looking forward to smashing through one of them for dinner and breakfast and I was really keen on having a couple of beers too, so I bought a couple of other things just as they were closing. I ended up drinking this powerful stuff and I just had to go to bed. So, I think I'm still being intoxicated this morning. I went to shower, got ready, had a couple of boiled eggs and I had my muesli. By that stage I felt a whole lot better and here I am at Matamata.

The maize is ready for harvest. I have just been passed by a convoy of green John Deere tractors and big bucket trucks.

Colin Quigley harvesting maize silage


I'm 250m high and about 18 kms south of Arapuni where I had a delicious milkshake in the cafĂ© that is at the end of the link with the Arapuni Dam. The cycle/walkway runs beside the Waikato river from Karapiro. I think Jade and Rodney did that with Torres. I crossed over the bridge at the top of the dam. When I was tour driving in 1980s we used to stop and watch people fishing trout from the river. Then you could see 6 or 7 metres down into the water because it was so clear. There are no fishermen now, and unfortunately you can't even see into the water it's so murky. It was reassuring a little bit later to see some riparian planting going on with flaxes and native trees along the sides of some of the streams on farm properties. There are some terrible pieces of forest that are overgrown with morning glory or honeysuckle just creeping up all the trees. In a year or two it'll be right over the top of them. It's getting hillier as you can see from the photo of the road. I just struggled up with a couple of vehicles passing me. I hadn't got off the bike to walk since leaving Auckland two days ago so I’m pretty pleased with that, but I've had to relent and walk up some of these hills. The country is getting steeper, it's changing, and you can see some of the volcanic rock here. Carrying on to Mangakino for the night.




Just flung myself downhill for 4kms without pedalling on a bitumen road topping out at 61.2kmph. Bliss after grinding uphill on an unsealed goat track for what seemed like hours! 

An unnamed bridge and ravine

Will

Will from Cambridge fly fishing at Waipapa Dam. I told him I would put him on my Facebook and he commented on his hot pink laces and said he hopes they don't lose me sponsors :-P When I told him he had wonderful style and invited him to check out the Facebook sponsorship he laughed and said he should get me to be in charge of his Tinder profile. A Kiwi comedian!


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