New Zealand Challenge - Day Five

NZ Challenge 2014 - North Island

Thames to Dargaville

A long day and a late night. The tired I stand here the longer I get, so a short blog tonight. We started off with clear sky and bright day early in the morning and arrived at our destination at 7:00pm. Fear not, the sun sets around nine PM so it still daylight. the stats for today:
Team 20 - 150kms
Team 27 - 200kms
Drivers - 300kms
The first half of the day we rode 90kms following some very picturesque coast line. An enjoyable morning. After that all the vehicles were commandeered. The bikes were loaded into special trailers borrowed until the end of the trip and the riders were bundled into the vehicles and were ferried through the busy motorways of Auckland to restart their journey the other side. In the Team 20 bus the riders fell asleep. In the Team 27 bus it was a boys club!! Team 27 captain, birthday boy Andrew F, stopped the bus 110 kms before our destination, unloaded the bikes and they were away. A 200km day for the birthday boy. Team 20 traveled further and put in a 150km day. Once we left the busy highway, the traffic thinned out and the scenery changed over to the amazing NZ scenery we are used to. The rolling hills started to take their toll and seemed to get higher each time. Once the hills were passed we were hit with savage winds. It was a long day in the saddle. Very trying and very tiring. Some weary cyclists found their way home and now we are going to bed. Good Night.