Today my watch is actually charged and I can get more accurate numbers from the ride! I hit a high speed of 50.5km/hr today! Which yes, was on the straight downhill from the big ass hill at the end!
3000 calories… how about double that with the amount of wind I faced today! pffffft!
117 Miles / 188 km
Well last night I was asleep by 10 and slept solidly till 7am this morning! First thing I do this morning is turn my phone on the check the weather and to see what my first bit of elevation was going to be for the day. Low and behold my credit has run out and I can do jack shit with my phone. Other than ‘top up on the app or online’ Well being out in the sticks there was no wifi. So I was phone-less for the morning/day!
I left Gumleaves at 8am, after a nice cycle through the property – It’s an awesome little resort with small lakes, rope bridges through trees, trampolines and mini golf! Would be a lot of fun to explore more here and hang out, but I have hills to conquer and miles to cycle! After 3km of dirt road it was nice to hit the tarmac again! My aim this morning was to bike through to Swansea before I took a break so about 25km away! The skies were blue this morning, and the weather was cool – but oh… If I thought the wind was bad yesterday, that was nothing. The NW winds were hitting me from in front again and my weather app tells me its 37km/h. Yeah It’s rough, it’s frustrating and it’s draining. There is a wind warning on my weather app for today and tomorrow – which makes me nervous and already exhausted!
Swansea was a cute little seaside town. I stopped at the IGA and eat lunch and stock up on gatorade. I also find free wifi, so bam on topping up credit and being able to use my map again. 48 km left to cycle today, and luckily just long gradual hills to get up and down. The wind started to calm down just after lunch and gave me a nice 2 hours break, which I managed to cycle most of the rest of the ride. I stopped 10km from Bicheno at this cute little cafe to have a well deserved coffee and homemade (mango) ice cream! So gooooooood!
The scenery again today was amazing. I biked past Devil’s Corner and it was beautiful up there. I would have stopped for a photo but I only noticed the incredible view after starting a steep downhill that I had no intention of stopping! haha! The roads were not great for cycling today with barely any hard shoulder and cars getting way too close. The amount of roadkill on the roads and in the ditches is unreal! Makes me a little nervous about driving here in a couple of weeks!
I arrived in beautiful Bicheno at 3.30pm, which feels wonderful to actually get to a place in a good tie that I can actually go explore it! the number one thing to do in Bicheno is the blowholes, so a 10 minute walk later to the beach and bam a blow hole! I sat down at the beach for a good hour just chilling and recovering from the ride today before hiking up Lookout Rock to get a cool view of the town and then heading back down the other side to get back to the hostel. Dinner was a snack dinner of cream cheese (honey and pistachio) and tomatoes on rice cakes – I really do struggle to eat decent meals when I’ve been exercising all day, but I think this will restore some of the 3000 calories I ‘lost’ today!
I spent the evening chilling in the hostel. The girls I’m sharing a room with actually seem okay and quite interesting to talk to. Guess that comes with the remote location and not being in the city backpackers hostel! I’ve planned my route a little more and actually changed my plans for later on in the trip – where I had a 6000+ elevation day I now have a 4000 ft one – I found a off the grid backpackers dorm at Derwent Bridge to stop at instead, which saves a huge detour but will still make for a horrible long day at the end, but It will be the last day and I have my sights on the end so I figured it would be better! He’s hoping for some kinder winds! Although the radar does not look promising! Its day 2 and I’m already thinking I should have biked the island the other way around… or maybe not at all. haaaa! 11 days to go!
It’s been another emotional and exhausting day. But it’s been better than yesterday. Just keeps getting better right??
“And then I learned the spiritual journey had nothing to do with being nice. It was about being real, authentic. Having boundaries. Honouring my space first. Others second. And in this space of self-care being nice just happened, it flowed not motivated by fear but by love”
