TA day 9: Whanganui River "descent"

TA day 09 - Down the Whanganui River from Robert and Marianne on Vimeo.

Today's journey took me from the upper reaches of the Whanganui River down to the town of the same name where the mighty river empties to the sea. But don't be fooled - whilst river water flows downhill, my route also had more than its fair share of ups. For the second day in a row I climbed over 2500m vertical!

And climbing is how my day began, on a tough single track known as the Kaiwhakouka Track. I have no idea what that translates as, but wouldn't be surprised if it is something like the "you'll need to eat a lot of food to have enough energy to climb me" track. In turn, it was steep, muddy, rough and always relentless. Along the way I had a look at Blue Duck Falls which was STUNNING. 

A large Maori pou greeted me when I reached the top of the track and joined the Mangaparua Track. This took me to the Bridge to Nowhere and finally the Whanganui River.

Along the way there were signs highlighting the names of returned servicemen from WW1 who were gifted plots of land in the region on their return from the battlefields. They were to turn their hand to taming the land, but it was tough, steep country with poor soils and terrible for farming. So the whole program was a failure... hence why the bridge goes nowhere.

I've canoed down the Whanganui River to Pipiriki a couple of times. It is a beautiful and spiritual place, that I'd happily return to many more times. Today, my journey included a jet boat ride from the Bridge To Nowhere to Pipiriki. It may sound like cheating, but despite performing superhuman feats of endurance on our bikes let me tell you unequivocally that none of the TA riders are capable of riding on water.

Back on my bike at Pipiriki, I followed the Whanganui River Road down to Whanganui. The river was my constant companion, sometimes just beside me and on other occasions far below me. Again it was a late finish as I didn't start this 77km section until nearly 4pm. The day was still intensely hot at that point. With no cloud cover today, I really suffered on part of it, probably from dehydration. But the undulations, mild headwind and ticking clock of daylight hours would not have helped either.

Today was animal discovery and rescue day. I met cows, goats, sheep, a pig and a horse unfenced on the road or track side today. On our jet boat ride we rescued a goat who was in distress swimming in the river and near to exhaustion. And on my last section of riding I lifted a hedgehog off the road who had made some poor life choices about where to have a rest.

A few stats... I've now passed the 1000km of tour route (in fact now up to over 1100km). Over 14000 vertical metres climbed on tour. No flat tires (on my bike). 7 nights camping. No kamikaze drivers (yet). 5 pies and counting. 1 time eating the best icecream in the universe.