Today was interesting…brilliant view to start!

The mountain was to dominate the first half of the day, so here it is again, different angle.

After Horopito ( 21.4 km) things got interesting as I lost Sue…I was waiting at the 26.9 km point where the ride bore left… but I will admit I had my back to the road for a portion of my wait.

Eventually I realised she must have gone straight ahead… only thing I could do was to give chase. I did for 4.5k  but then was concerned…. what if she had headed left after I took off??

I flagged a car down asking them to keep an eye out for her.

I went back to the junction and repacked and re balanced the rear saddle bag as it was misbehaving! I ate my prepared bacon roll…hmm… what to do.

My mobile phone had jammed up after getting out a couple of quick messages and wanted a passcode to re enter. It was not my phone so tried a few options.. fail.

Knowing Sue had notes in her bag and a sensible head, and it was a glorious day, I headed off passing through Ohakune looking for her bike! No luck so headed towards Waiouru. A few km before the town a cyclist caught up to me.

He works at the local army base and lent me his mobile to hotspot my iPad. There was a message from Sue! I did rather fancy an army chopper though for an aerial search!

It was a really hot day so I stopped and grabbed an icy pole and some water,  before cruising up the road and finding the local army museum.  I fancied the second one for driving on NZ roads to keep me safe! Should do the job… one previous owner, low mileage on the clock.. fuel economy??

The road out of town was very fast and busy. Not a big fan of highway riding even though you have to do a bit at home in Tasmania.

I was quite relieved when i turned off after 20 km to take the back road to Taihape via Spooners Hill. Really pretty with unusual hills.

Taihape is the Gumboot capital of the World! Appropriately they have a large gumboot! I am still a big kid at heart!

Dinner was at a fabulous French restaurant. Great meal. We ordered two desserts and agreed to share. So we established Standard Operating Procedures for dessert sharing. The desserts, were awful! Ha ha ha