This ride wasn’t very interesting, so this will be a short post. I was feeling a bit low on energy and it felt like my bike was way heavier than last time. I only had 60km to go, but there were no stops along the way.

Looks like I wasn't the only one feeling tired today

After 20km I reached the Mangorewa Gorges, where the road was squeezed between huge cliff faces. The turns were very tight and the road shoulder was barely useful. Most of it was covered in loose gravel and lined with extremely prickly bushes. I ended up walking for a fair portion of it, but it gave me a chance to bond with my bike. After three years, I still hadn’t named it. So while I was standing there with my arms draped over the handlebars and my head lying on the drybag in my basket, I gave him a name, “Pups”. Up we went, waiting for the downhill to finally reward us.

Eventually my work did pay off, as I beat my record for highest speed down a hill. It must have been a combination of being on a super smooth road and crouching down really low to reduce wind resistance.

The rest of it was straight forward, I made it to the hostel an hour earlier than I expected. I wasn’t allowed to check in anyway, so I just had lunch anyway, all lycra’d up still. Bobby’s fish market was great and the jumbo tub of tartare sauce makes up for all those times those little squirty sauce packets ran out half way through my meal.

$9 of deliciousness

It turns out the hostel had some issues with allocating rooms so they just upgraded me to a private room instead. Hooray! It’s a bit of an older place, but the location is literally on the harbour. I’m looking forward to watching the sunrise from the balcony tomorrow.