Day 16 (Dec 18) Just past Rewa to the Desert Road 84.7km = 1406.5

Haha..........we saw this sign on what was to be the hardest hill of the trip

Waiouru Army Museum

We set up camp on the desert road





We only saw this sign when we woke up.....woops

The best camping spot of the trip so far


Day 16 (Dec 18) Just past Rewa to the Desert Road 84.7km = 1406.5

Hills continued today, so the day was long in hours on the bike seat but short in kms. Good news is that we are now only 90km from Taupo.

I thought that South Island would be the hilly one - thats a load of bullshit, North Island has way bigger, harder, longer hills! It was a hard slog especailly with legs smashed up from the previous day.

The most exciting thing that happened (until we reached Waiouru) was a cool Tui sign, unless you guys think that hills are exciting, we dont...ohh, sorry, one exciting thing, theres apperantly a very nice little park in Taihape (all the locals wanted us to know about it...)

Anyway, we missed out on the Army Museum, but still got to play on their tanks and ancient cannons parked outside. Lots of history, like for example, that when Westport felt threatened by a potential Russian Emperial Navy invasion they decided to place a 40lbs cannon (notice the singular term not plural) there to defend themselves - good luck :)

Had a great feed in Waiouru and decided to do a few more kms into the desert road to make next day easy - on our way out met this alsome Policeman who thinking we were tourists and wanted to warn us that there is NOTHING on the desert road and that we probably should turn back as its "really exposed". Was all sweet as soon as he realised we arent tourists :) Turned out he does some touring cycling too and he was pretty stoked with our efforts. So big thanks to Rick from Ohakune Police Station who actually cared about cyclists!

The last 10-15km along desert road were pretty fantastic, great scenary and so nice to see the familiar shapes of Ruapehu and Ngaruhoe.

We pitched a tent on the Army land, on the softest land we ever had - would of been a great sleep if not for the freezing cold. All good though.

P.S.
Still snow on the mountains.