Day 15 - Wakefield to Lake Rotoroa - 97 km, 1023 m




 A 7:00 AM departure from the Wakefield Hotel had us at the Spooners Tunnel before too long. The tunnel is 1.35 km long and steadily rising for about 85% of te distance - a light is definitely required and the thing with this tunnel compared with others I have ridden through is that it is very dry (as in no dripping water or puddles/water course and the surface is very well formed and smooth like concrete.

John and I met another cyclist (Graeme) yesterday at the start of the Mangatapu track and we re-connected with him at the Hotel last night. As he was riding to Rotoroa as well we offerred to take his bags for him and invited him to ride with us if he wished - he accepted the invitation so today we had five riders in our peleton.

The track away from the tunnel is "hard and fast" and has a gentle decline of about 2% to it - this makes for a false sense of reality in that one can begin to think they have their shi* together and are actually a pretty good rider as you get along on the twists and turns at 23 KPH or more. However the first +4-5% climb one encounters changes that mindset very quickly.

We stopped at Tapawera for our morning tea and then headed up the Taperwera/Tadmore to Glehope Vallley - about 20 km of sealed road followed by 15 km of gravel before we reconnected with the CHC - Nelson highway for about 8km and our lunch stop at Kawatari which was the end of the line that closed in 1955. After our lunch stop there we had about 17 km to do before arriving at Lake Rotoroa and our accommodation for the night.

I came through Rotoroa a few weeks back trying to track down the bach  that hosted us back in 2022 - I didn't find him however another bach (old style typical "kiwi bach" two doors down had people in it who gave me the owners of that bach's  details - they were quick in responding and I booked their bach. All was looking good.

You can imagine my surprise then when riding in to Rotoroa I see Ian had pulled up to the "flash" bach next door and had made himself at home! A quick confirmation that Ian (as would be expected) followed the "let yourself in" instructions to the letter and in fact had the right place! What a pleasant surprise it made for.

If you are ever travelling to or from the Motueka or Nelson region and don't mind 15 km's of shingle road then I can recommend you take the road from Tapawera to Glehope - The Glenhope train station is still standing out in the paddock on the left of the road heading North (look for it next time)... It is a pleasant valley with an interesting mix of properties - some economic farms, some hop farms and quite a few smaller places that are too small to be economic farms yet too large to be the traditional lifestyle property. Interesting.  

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