Day 3 Waipawa to Hastings

This was the longest of the three days (62 Km). Noreen came down with a nasty dose of food poisoning overnight so after a valiant attempt to cycle, she returned to Waipawa and was picked up by the support vehicle that was moving our luggage onto the next night’s accommodation.

This is The Pines, the oldest building in Waipawa, erected in 1858 for T. H. Fitzgerald who was the first Superintendent of Hawke’s Bay.
We saw quite a few Kotare (kingfishers), often resting on wires above streams. This is the best photo I got of them.

The journey was over back country roads, all sealed and no major hills. Here is a typical one lane bridge over a stream.

No sign of friskiness here!

I didn’t expect to see free-range turkeys (I think).

These give an idea of the countryside. It's largely rolling hills with the mountain chains over in the distance.

These goats are hinting at friskiness.

The road goes ever onward. Clouds were building up on the horizon but it stayed dry until the next day.

Native trees were few and far between. Here is a small grove of Cabbage Trees.

This is the big downhill run where I got to 49.2 Km/hr!

After breaking the world speed record I stopped for lunch (using the auto-timer after a number of embarrassing failures which resulted in pictures of my rear end hurrying to take up position!)

I thought this was an interesting composition with all the different textures and colours.

The last 10 kilometres were over the main road into Hastings. It got a bit tedious toward the end and I was hot, tired and saddle-sore when I arrived at the motel. Luckily they had a spa bath which was luxury.