TA day 25: Hari Hari to Fox
Distance 100km, Elevation Gain 1200m
After a splendid breakfast at One Stop Cafe, together with our new mate Nigel who we met at the Hari Hari Hotel over dinner and beers last night, doing the TA northbound, it was on the road before 9am.
Pleasant cruising on flat roads warmed us up nicely for the 140m climb up Mt Hercules! Thereafter fairly flat and fast riding all the way to Whataroa for second breakfast, where we met Brad, last seen in Pipiriki, and with whom we shared the shuttle ride up to Cape Reinga from Auckland what seems like a lifetime ago!
We left him to his full cooked breakfast, and sped on, enjoying the unaccustomed light tailbreeze, picturesque Lake Mapourika, and gradually climbing all the way to Franz Josef Village for lunch, all the while drinking in the increasingly jaw-dropping mountain scenery along the way.
Snakebite Cafe provided a southeast Asian flavour to lunch, with dumplings, Pad Thai and crispy squid rings all dispatched - with chopsticks, no less!
Sun was now out full chat, just in time for the killer jab-jab-uppercut combination of a brutal triple saddle climb (320m, 150m, 220m all in a short distance) - which Andy enjoyed gleefully while Alastair just....suffered and rained sweat! Finally it was over, and time for the long downhill into Fox.
Having dumped our bike baggage at our motel, we fairly sprinted the 2km out of Fox to the 2km side trail up to the glacier viewpoint for the photo checkpoint, then returned to Fox and our motel for showers (for one a spa bath no less!) and laundry before heading out for an excellent dinner at Betsey Jane's.
And so to bed, along with the canine bedmate kindly provided by our moteliers!
