You Don't Want to Know

Leaving Rotorua this morning headed for Greytown, we knew it would be a long day. But we had no idea just how long. The first part of the run down to Taupo was a little breezy, but pretty enough, mostly moving right along. As we stopped for coffee at a little café by the lake, we looked to the south and groaned. It was black down there, and that’s where we were going. Rain gear on, off we went, and it didn’t take long to be glad we had it. I had brought the wrong rain pants, and couldn’t use them, but didn’t think it would matter much.

Wrong. Imagine riding under a fire hose for 30 or 40 miles, then turn on the wind machine, and redline it. And when you’re really having fun, throw in a few miles of knife-edge riding along very twisty mountain roads, on the left, mind you, where if those winds took you the wrong way, you’d have a few thousand meters of flight before you hit the rocks at the bottom of the Gulch of Death. Pull into a gas station, that has no gas, and find another one, then try to get off your bike, soaked and frozen to the core.

I love the people I’m riding with. David and I were at the front of the pack, and when the others caught up, everyone dug through their bags and found enough extra clothing to offer that I was able to get back on the bike after lunch.

A brief respite came in the form of the rain finally ending, and a lovely road through hilly sheep farms, with twisties enough to be fun, but not sharp enough to be hard work. At the next turn, however, the wind was back, and I can’t count the times I literally feared being blown off the road. We later learned that it had been clocked at 135 kmh.

At the end of it all, however, we landed at a lovely old hotel with huge rooms and fluffy beds and delicious dinner. The three Russians in our group, Yuri, Leonid and Alexander, decided we all needed a bit more warming up, so they bought a few bottles of vodka for the 12 of us, and shots were consumed. I was so tired I don’t even remember pulling up the covers when we went to bed, and never knew a thing until morning.

By the way, the photograph above is the Huka falls, which are the outflow from Lake Taupo. Not long ago, a famous New Zealand Rugby player was drowned here, when his paramour threw him in. I think there’s a moral in there somewhere.