Bikes around a rock
Whanganui to Masterton, 25th - 29th January
After waiting in Whanganui, I'd been hoping I'd be done with rain, but unfortunately that wasn't quite so. I took a detour to Palmerston North for the salvation of a warm and dry home before continuing south towards Masterton. Things picked up there with some good weather and nice nature, and I was getting pretty close to the southern end of the North Island.
I left Whanganui on the Tour Aotearoa route, which included a fun historic elevator trip in the Durie Hill Elevator. Apparently the hiking TA goes the same way, because I ran into the hiker and her aunt who I’d met in Pipiriki a few days prior. They’d managed to overtake me on foot, which really goes to show how slow I’d been going lately. I don’t think that’ll happen again, though - there’s no way they’ll be able to match a 63-kilometre day walking, which is how far I’d be heading to Hunterville.
I had been hoping that it would be warm and sunny again by the time I left Whanganui; alas, fifteen minutes out of town I was cycling through a drizzle-fog combo on the hills towards Hunterville. Wearing all my waterproofs again, the prospect of wild camping felt much less fun, and I really wasn’t looking forward to being wet for the next couple of days. Cold and sad, with the rain getting worse, I remembered that a cousin of a friend of my mother lived in Palmerston North, and I sent them a long-shot text asking if I might be able to stay tomorrow night. Palmerston North wasn’t on the TA route, but I wouldn’t mind swapping some gravel roads for a short stretch of highway if it meant I’d get a warm, dry bed.
Things improved once I reached Hunterville, as I found a rain shelter in a public park which became my home for the evening. I occupied the entire table, but I wasn’t in anyone’s way - everyone sensible was staying in their homes away from the downpour. And, wonderfully, my long-shot text to Palmerston North had yielded a warm invitation to stay. With that in my pocket, everything felt better - I had a nice camping spot under the trees in the park, I had fresh tap water, and the public toilets were the best I’d ever seen. The next morning, too, felt much better, and I wondered whether I even needed the dry bed anymore. By that point, though, I’d already agreed to go, and I wasn’t really complaining about the prospect. I headed south down the highway towards Palmerston North.
In Palmerston North, I got an incredibly sweet welcome from the Indian couple who hosted me. Their children, roughly my age, had moved away to Auckland and Melbourne, and all the built-up parental energy found an outlet in looking after me. They gave me my own room, took me out for dinner, took me to the supermarket, advised me on the local roads, and offered to set up a chat with their neighbours who like cycling. It was a little overwhelming all in one go, honestly. They hardly knew me, but they immediately treated me like one of the family. They insisted I should stay two nights, not just leave the next day, or they might think I didn’t like them. Looking at the weather forecast and listening to my body, I didn’t mind agreeing. It would be good to have a rainy day off where I truly rested, stayed at home, and perhaps caught up on writing my blog.
I didn’t end up writing much of my blog, but I had a very restful day and watched The Fellowship of the Ring with my hosts, who then tried to gift me a guidebook about Lord of the Rings filming locations in New Zealand. They were very sweet, and I was glad to have stopped there. I continued, rejuvenated, on Wednesday, and I was finally free from the rain. Under beautifully warm sunshine, I rode through the gentle hills south of the city towards Eketāhuna, where there was supposed to be a nice campsite. It was a lovely ride without too much traffic, and I took it nice and easy, enjoying the feeling of being outside in the sun again. The campsite at Eketāhuna was pretty nice indeed, run by a sweet old couple, although as always it was mostly a campervan crowd. There were a couple of cyclists there, as I’d rejoined the TA route, but I didn’t feel much like socialising. I was happy by myself, reading a book and looking up at the stars.
From Eketāhuna, I had been planning to follow the TA route down to Masterton, but upon seeing the Pūkaha Wildlife Centre ahead on Highway 2 I was set on going that way. Birds! I had been missing them since leaving India and I’d heard good things about this particular wildlife centre. It would be really nice to see a kiwi too, even if it wasn’t in the wild. The traffic on the highway was a little unpleasant, with trucks thundering past, but I could live with it and kept myself entertained with a podcast in one ear.
The birds were worth it, anyway - I absolutely loved the wildlife centre and spent the whole afternoon there until closing time. I saw kiwis, kakas, takahēs and many other birds, and my favourite - the tuatara. They look like lizards but they belong to a different branch of reptile evolution from hundreds of millions of years ago, with some weird features like a third eye that’s always closed, and they can live for over a hundred years. They’re weird little creatures and I love them.
From Masterton, I planned to cheat a little bit - in the morning, I’d take the train to Wellington, as my Auckland Warmshowers host Don had recommended to me at the start of my trip. That way, I’d skip some boring highway riding and save a few days, which I could spend seeing Wellington instead. First, though, I’d have to sleep in Masterton, and for that I planned to camp by the lake. There were some public toilets there and it seemed that other people had done it, so I was confident it would be alright. Reaching the lake (which had only black swans) it was clear that camping here was very normal, with several campervans parked already. I had a little stare at the unusual swans before making my way over to a small cluster of tents away from the parking lot. There on the grass were three tents and three bicycles arranged around a large rock with each bicycle leaning against the rock. Mine fit perfectly in the remaining rock-side space, as if they had been waiting for me. I had found myself some friends.