Day 8 Taumaranui to Owhango - 27 km, 602 m



"BIKO" - Biko was the chap the Motellier had told us would do a shuttle for us to get ourselves and our bikes down to Blue Duck Station at Whakahoro. This was needed coz the accommodation at Blue DUck Station is closed on Tuesday and Wednesdays! REALLY. However had we stayed there there the shortest stay is two nights accommodation! REALLY.

Because we had no ccommodation at Blue Duck Station we decided on two nights in Taumaranui with a rest day to service the bikes and chill.

Anyhow back to BIKO - I spoke with him about the shuttle the week before and he said call him when we get in to Taumaranui  and sent him a confirmation text (just to be on the safe side). I phoned him when we got in to town and got no reply so had to leave it till the next day. I finally got though to him and he was not very "with it"but said he would organise his son's ute to take us down to Whakahoro - we had a haggle over his $3 per km however settled on $200 for a 6:00 AM start as we wanted to be on the trail in time to meet up with the 1:30 PM jet boat pick up on the Whanganui River.

We were all packed and waiting outside the Motel when two women pulled up in a station wagon and said they were there to take us! REALLY. They didn't know where they were taking us and had no way of transporting bikes and wanted to renegitate the rate! Off they went to hire a trailer however came back coz they wanted money for the trailer! REALLY! Then it was changed to borrowing a mates ute but they needed $150 for the fuel! REALLY,t At that point i said forget it and hopped out of the car that we were in to get the ute.

Some more phone calls were made and we found a kayak shuttle running from Owhango first thing the next mornimg. So that's what we settled on and headed off to Owhango 27 km's in the right direction - however now we are a day behind schedule on account of BIKO who could not organise the proverbial in my opinion! 

The Kayak shutlle people have put us up in thier "cottage" see  my pic of the day which is behind their HQ which once used to be the Owhango Hotel. Not the flashest of our accommodation but it is at least in the right direction of where we want to go.

Because of the challenges above we then had to rebook our accommodation from here through to Wellington which I managed to do befroe we left Taumaranui.

It was a nice ride through to Owhango through hill country and I was pleased to be able to see a logging operation on process bringing the cut trees up to the skidder site on the side of the road. After watching that for a few minutes 3/4 way up a 250m hill I saw an email come through on  my phone from the Alexander Motel billing me $170 for the damaged chair! REALLY. Today of all days that is not the sort of email to send to me (of course we did not damage any of their furniture) and now when I phoned to let him know that, the call won't go through!

Just as well I was able to have a nice refreshing hot shower here in the "cottage". However with the cottage there was some good news and some bad news that I had to share with Peter and Stephen on the shower front.

They opted for the good news first:
The shower waslovely and hot,

Then of course I had to share the bad news:
The shower now has no hot water!

REALLY!

They both took that news really well I thought - just as well it is a lovely hot sunny Central North Island Summers day.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 3 - Matamata to Putaruru - 52 km 389 m

Image
  A casual start to the day knowing we only had 52 km to ride. Temperature in the mid twenties with a bit of a breeze so not getting cooked like the previous two days. Stopped at Robyn and Henry's farm on the outskirts of Matamata as we were riding right past there gate - I met this lovely couple on the Kopiko back in 2022. The trail takes through some lovely undulating, lush Waikato farm land and past the turn off to Hobbiton and perhaps if I'd seen the movie then it may have had more meaniing! Anyhow there was still several touristy type cars heading in that direction. We then were on the main Tauranga to S H Way1  highway which fortuatley for most of the 7 km's has a readonable shoulder, we then turned South on S H Way 1 for 950 m before getting off it and heading along to Arapuni beside Lake Karapiro. This had us on a section of the Waikato River Trail through to the Rhubarb Cafe at Arapuni. A smoothie, a muffin and a pot of tea was had before we took the direct route i...
Read more

Day 9 Whakahoro to Whanganui River Landing (then Pipiriki) 42 km, 772 m

Image
  Finally we got traction on being able to get to Whakahoro and the start of the Kaiwhakauka Track. This was all off road and the first 15 km's or so on farm track then single track. Although it has been several days since there has been any rain the track this time round in places was quite muddy and this is thick, gooey, sticky, mud so this meant in quite a few places we had to hop off and push the bikes through. There is really only one major hill to climb and that was a bit over 400 metres over 5 kms with no respite. The first half is single track that the track builders have and are still spending a lot of effort improving and then from there on for a considerable chunk it is a 4x4 access track that leads on to the Bridge to Nowhere and past the abaonded rehab settlement farms that just could not make a go of it 100 years ago. Now all that remains is the odd clearing with inrtroduced pasture grasses, pine and macrocarpra trees along with hydranges and one or two chimney remane...
Read more

Day 0 - Preparation

Image
A flight to AKL first thing Tursday morning, assembled the bike in the terminal and then met at Airport by Shelley and Paul and off to their bach at Ngarimu Bay up from Thames for a few days. After losing all the air from my rear tubeless tyre I visit the Thames Bike Shop to  buy some more tyre sealant and use their compressed air to inflate it. All good however the next day I saw the front tyre had lost some rubber from its sidewall so back in to the bike shop I rode this time for a new tyre. The bike now has two brand new tyres.
Read more