I started the day with a much lighter pack, thanks to Mike and Leanne who were going to mail my stuff back to me. They literally saved my ride- I don’t know how I could ride another day with the full load. 

Cam rode with me for the first 30 km or so into Broadwood. It was great having company, along with a few other TA riders that were constantly going past.  

Leanne saved my ride again, this time driving up the road with my bivvy bag which I’d left behind at Mike’s place.

After two meat pies and a coke at general store, I headed up the first gravel section to Rawene. It was great fun on the Mezcal- the tyre was grippy and I was flying along. 

It got progressively hotter so I was very glad to arrive at the coast to catch the ferry at Rawene, but missed it by 5min! Argh…it was a good 40min wait for it to return, which is not great if you have 130km to ride. My average speed kept dropping and I knew I was pushing to get there before dark.

My intention was to get to the Kauri Coast Top10 holiday park, but in my tiredness I thought it was at Donnelys Crossing- it would be another 8km further. 

Another 2 meat pies (that’s four for the day!) at Opononi, and I was ready to tackle the big climb up to Waipoua forest. Today was hilly. I finally got to photo point 3, Tane Mahuta, one of NZs oldest and largest trees. 

It was a fast descent from there, but by the time I arrived at the turnoff to Donnelys crossing it was almost dark. Another 12km! Easy. I turned on the lights, but the gravel just looked white under LED, which made it hard to see uneven surfaces. What should have taken less than an hour took almost two.  On top of that I missed the accommodation and went past it 2.5km,  adding 5km to my ride, a total of 145km. 

I rolled into the holiday park at 10.30pm, a full 15 hour day!  That was hard- just a different sort of hard to day 1, when everything hurt.