Good Morning, Good Morning: The weekend with cycling and running adventures

Hi,

What a weekend - and it included my birthday too! I was up to adventures and Mike was in Wellington having adventures too.

Friday morning saw me and Iona head off to collect Maureen just after 9.30am and pile her bike and gear in the car and then continue up SH1 to Palmerston North. This weekend was the culmination of our planning for Iona's big birthday late last year. And it happened to coincide with my birthday. A double birthday whammy.

We'd borrowed a colleague's bike for Iona's trusty ride for the weekend. A 29in Trek hardtail. And it certainly did the trick. Nice shifting - except for the middle ring at the front. Which - bah - who really needs to use those that much? Hahah. Thank you, Mark. And his wife - who may or may not have known she was lending her bike out. :-D

Shannon coffee break

We stopped at a nice cafe in Shannon to get some caffeine into us. Their iced latte was pretty good. After that quick stop, we found ourselves outside Shelley and Kate's house. They were baking in the sunshine and I got a wee glimpse of their beautiful backyard.

We parked our car out the front of their house. It waited there till the next day when Mike came to pick it up. :-)

About now we realised we forgot to pick up the front pack for Iona from Maureen's place. But just judicious use of the many bungee cords we had saw that work just fine with her dry bag on there.

Thank you Shelley and Kate for the use of your verge and bathroom facilities

Lunch stop

So we were off. Rode in the hot sun through parks across the river and up a hill. 7.5km later we stopped for lunch. Hahah. Had a sandwich. Then off again. Up Polson Drive hill, then up the even steeper Pahiatua Track. Which was hot. And so busy. Sheep trucks. So many cars. Because the saddle road is closed during the day at the moment.

Top of Pahiatua track

Iona negotiates a curve

The ride down the other side was superb. Loved the huge windmills at the top too. At the bottom, we headed left and off up a side road. Then took a right onto a gorgeous gravel road. Maureen powered ahead - as she does. And I immediately realised my handlebars were loose. It was really hard to ride the gravel section with loose handlebars, let me just say. I loved this part of the route. I must go back and try it without the additional steering issues.

Found Maureen and she had hex keys to tighten my handlebars. Yay! Onto seal again and by the milk factory (yuck) which is when I realised I had ridden this route with Andrew once. See here: Done some of this before

Stopped at the toilet at Pahiatua before continuing down a beautiful back road. Lovely, quiet roads. Hot. The tar was melting on the road. In fact, you could here the tacky crackling as you rode over it. Iona heard pine cones cracking open in the trees.

Saw a kotare in the power lines - love those birds.

Lovely back road from between Pahiatua and Eketahuna

Into Eketahuna quite late. Close to 6pm. We were staying at the Eketahuna Inn. The people were so welcoming. They had a lock up shed for our bikes. And free washing machine for our dirty bike gear. We also enjoyed a good pub tea. I had feta and pine nut salad. Pretty good.

We had 2 rooms. One double for Maureen. One with 2 single beds for me and Iona. Hand basin in the room. Shared bathroom. Old school.

For 3 meals, 2 rooms, washing, toast for brekkie, it cost us $270. Pretty good. We had a quick walk after tea before bed.

Kiwi country

I slept well. But Iona and Maureen did not. Apparently there was loud pub noise outside Maureen's window. And someone talked on the phone in the room next to her at 1am. And Maureen could actually hear both ends of the conversation! Also, someone walked up the hallway on their phone saying they had given the wrong key to someone else.

Anyway. I was oblivious.

Woke up to a lovely day. And it was also my birthday! Woot! Toast and tea for brekkie. Great way to start.

I was on the Trek first thing this morning to try and give time to Iona to recover from the Pahiatua Track effort the day before. Seemed to do the trick.

Kitchen facilities

My birthday brekkie

This was a lovely route. Out the back roads of Eketahuna, onto gravel. Then across SH2 to more back roads. This was really nice. And we met a lot of cyclists coming towards us. One merrily waved and shouted to us. So I waved back just as merrily. Then I realised she was asking if we were on the TA. Hah! No. Just this wee part.

Gravel hills were a tough ask without any electrons to assist. Hahah.

Maureen waits for us

Into Masterton for an early lunch. Stopped at Real Food Cafe. Or something. Nice. Bit slow with their service. Gave us lots of time to enjoy the Christian singers that set up across the road as we sat down. Oh - lovely.

Gospel singers

Iced lattes

Then onto the back road through Gladstone. Nice and warm. Few stops under trees. Past Admiral hill road. Maureen was a speck in the distance most of the time.

The bikes

Legs looking amazing

Got into Martinborough pretty early. 2.30pm ish. Got our cabin at the Top10. Rather annoyingly they make you book 2 nights minimum. So I paid $350 for our wee cabin for Sat and Sun nights. After a shower for all of us, we walked into town. Place was heaving. As we sat outside on the corner of the square we watched a lot of drunken antics. A young woman on a bike rode into a post right in front of us. Laughed a lot. Then wobbled over to her friends. I didn't watch that anymore.

Van load of men poured out with dubious costume choices.

Yeah. Anyway - I got a bowl of fries with a tomato sauce dunked chip as the candle. And the most delicious pina colada without alcohol. Yum!!!

A pina colada with none of that yucky alcohol - delicious!

Cheers!

Maureen got me a second one. But it actually had rum in it. And I tried to drink it. Hoping it was just a different way of making it. But it was awful. Never got better. So Iona finished it. And she said it had rum in it. So it wasn't just me thinking it was terrible.

Mike arrived at Martinborough and we ordered tea. Had a good meal. Chatted away to him. He'd been up to get the car and back. Then over the hill to here. A driving marathon ahead of his actual half marathon on Sunday morning.

He dropped us off at the cabin, took some dirty washing home and we went to bed.