Cycle: 88km

After getting so wet yesterday it was a relief to wake up to relatively good weather. We set off fairly promptly and had a plan to avoid SH1 by riding a bit further and keeping to the back roads. This proved to be an excellent plan and we managed to ride side by side in the sunshine for the first 40km! We passed through farmed land so not much excitement but it was wonderful to be riding in good weather on a quiet road.

We stopped for lunch in Bulls and ate the best Turkish kebabs I've had in years. We checked out the expensive cafe first then went all out for the falafel kebabs - yum!

The second half of the day was a bit hilly all the way. When we finally arrived in Wanganui we were quite cooked and I was getting a bit nervous about the amount of cycling we had to do over the next week or so. Our hostel was quite nice and we got to choose between about a million different rooms. We walked through the centre of town to the Countdown supermarket and cooked dinner which we ate in the nice dining room (unfortunately this came with a complete idiot decided he'd tell us how many lakes he'd been to that we hadn't around Tongariro!). The town itself seemed very pleasant and we enjoyed a good nights sleep here on our journey North.