Pātea Beach to Dudding Lake

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A new development is the temperature! First thing in the morning it’s cold. So peeking out of my sleeping bag the frigid air, at 11°C, grabs your head and you spend some minutes summoning reserves to extract yourself out of the sleeping bag and start packing your things away. I am usually pedalling off at 7.30am before anyone else had stirred and I wonder if they even knew I was there when they get up.

Today I was on to the State Highway 3 (SH3) and being Monday morning the trucks are back. New Zealand infrastructure is well behind its growing traffic. Single carriageways are seemingly inadequate for vehicles travelling at 60mph plus. Often the carriageways are separately by posts and heavy duty cables. I suspect an out of control logging truck with its trailer isn’t going to be stopped swerving across the road by these wires. I ride on the hard shoulder, where it exists. On the bike I have a Garmin radar that tells me something is behind and approaching and I wear a rear view mirror attached to the arm of my spectacles. At least I know something is coming up behind me even if there’s little I can do about it. If all this sounds dangerous then I feel I’m easy to see and out of their way. Although not far away (eight foot?) the noise of the cars and trucks speeding past is wearing and fatiguing.

To lift my spirits a cafe came into sight and a second breakfast was demolished. I WhatsApp’d Anna who amazed the waitresses by being in England and me in Waverley videoing.

Not long after my stop I came across my first cycle tourer. Martin was a German. He’d been in NZ since December and was touring around, on both islands, mainly on gravel trails. The are many listed trails that cross the islands. He’d given up his job and said this was his second trip to NZ. In fact, as was obvious now, the way to see NZ on a bike was on an appropriate gravel bike like this. It wasn’t for me. However, I think you’d see more of the beauty of the country. I was now seeing a rural setting with lots of cattle but little of particular note. I hadn’t known this when I picked the route back in Blighty.

I was slightly ahead of my original itinerary and had planned to stop overnight in Whanganui. This time I cycled into town at lunchtime with a plan to push on. My first mission was to replace the soap box and bar of soap I’d left in my hotel. I found a large pharmacy.

“Would you tell me where I’ll find a soap box?”

“A soap box?”

“Yes, a soap box?”

“A soap box?”

“Yes, a soap box”

“You mean a box holding lots of soap?”

“No, a small plastic box holding a bar of soap for people travelling,”

“Oh, a soap holder. Aisle seven at the bottom on the left”

Stopping at a supermarket to buy some dinner I nearly mowed over Chris as he traversed the car park with difficulty. He’s an expat Brit who had a career as a social worker. He’d left Britain to escape ‘Thatcher’s Britain’ and subsequently lived and worked in Australia, Scotland before coming to reside in NZ. He was very affable albeit somewhat dishevelled. We shot the breeze before we continued about our missions.

Whanganui had a lot of charm and I dallied awhile before hitting the reviled SH3 heading east.

Unlike my tailwind the day before I encountered a headwind and if that was disappointing I encountered my good friend Mr 7% regularly with unwelcome guest appearances of Mr 8, 9 and even 10%. It was a hot afternoon and now wary of the intense NZ sun I was suitably lathered up with my Factor 50.

With Anna we’d identified Dudding Lake as a good place to camp. At NZ$10 for the night it was my cheapest fee so far.

As soon as I entered the campsite I was metaphorically grabbed by Caroline! A lady of about my vintage appeared out of her camping van enquiring as to my plans and volunteered where I should pitch my tent on this enormous site: next to her van! Needless to say I wanted to pitch elsewhere but accepted the kind off of a cup of tea. She was a permanent resident with her cat. Her son lived in Brisbane and her daughter lived in Dublin with their respective children. She seemed to spend the day looking out of her van windows looking for someone to talk to. Her kindness was welcome but I had laundry to wash, a tent to erect, dinner to make and so thanked her and got about my chores.

I thought you may like to see the average camp kitchen and a tour around my accommodation (mind your head.)