Today's journey took us from Taupo to Whanganui (or Wanganui, o haven't worked out which) via a number of pit stops. The first was the eagerly anticipated 'Pillars of Hervules' which had been noted out on our map as a place to see. I started to feel a little dubious about this scenic stop when we had to follow a side road for 4km, followed by a not-quite-sealed road for 3km more. At this point we ditched Wendy and proceeded on foot, for fear that we wouldn't get her back up the steep hill that ensued. At the bottom of the hill we were directed to the Pillars viewpoint, which took the form of a bridge (maximum load 15 persons - 150% of the usual...). From this delightfully wobbly bridge we could see, well, nothing! Highly disappointing - I'm going to look up what the Pillars are as soon as I can, hopefully we weren't being stupid and just missed them.
Leaving our disappointment and thankfully the rain behind, we drove beyond the Tongariro area that we'd hiked yesterday and entered the Whanganui district via SH4. This pried to be a scenic, hilly and petrol heavy road. Odd things cropped up - like more of the stacks of beehive boxes, and a fence where each of the hundred or so posts had an old pair of shoes hung off it. We were surprised to come across a "washout", where half of the road appeared to have been undermined by a stream and had dropped down the sheer slope. This demanded the first set of temporary traffic lights I have seen in New Zealand.
There was also a distinct lack of petrol stations, so spurred on by multiple radio ads ("until midday tomorrow we've slashed 20 cents per litre off all our prices" - it was true, we watched a Gull station go from 188.9 to 168.9 overnight!) we made a pit stop in he town for some petrol. We also got some grocery items from Countdown, and I was pleased to see them pack our shopping into bags, although they still did the awkward trolley thing.
The Whanganui River Road awaited us, and we were glad to be running on full as this was a hefty climb too. There are plenty of loaded-up touring cyclists here and I've not once yet wanted to swap! From the river road we did a quick viewpoint walk (supposedly 2hrs but only took 40 minutes as the path ended abruptly in a horse bush) before going into our riverside campsite. Plenty of scullers were out enjoying the beautiful hot evening and flat watee - I was a little jealous.
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