We new we had a hard day and felt pretty rough when we woke up on the department of conservation campsite, had our PB (peanutbutter) rolls for breakfast and headed out at about 9.
Everything we heard about the Forgotten World Highway was spot on, the hills were mega steep and there were a lot of them, you spin your way up one hill and shoot down the other side so before you've had a lot of time to rest you're on an uphill again.
We had 95km to cover so we tried keeping the breaks to a minimum but with Alice and me that's always a hard one, a plan to stop for 5 mins and before we realise its been an hour. The sun was unbearably hot and you felt like you were about to melt on some of the more exposed hills so we had to go for a while before we found shade to sit and have lunch. We just had pasta and a bit of butter and we had almost run out of water, ( I thought it would be a good idea to drink the pasta water, definitely wasn't) and was starting to get a bit concerned because on these roads, as you don't see any shops or petrol stations to top up from.
Just as we were packing up lunch, a coach pulled up and asked if we were alright, a man called Terry who works at a local golf cart service on the train tracks , said he had cold water, juice, cakes, fruit and flapjack and asked if we wanted a lift for a little bit while we ate the food. To Alice's disappointment I jumped at the chance and soon we were in a air conditioned coach getting told about the local hills and stories about people who had died. He took us about 35k in the end which saved us a lot of time and when we got out (at the top of a massive hill) he couldn't give us enough food, he was throwing loads of bread, bunches of oranges, apples, bananas, 3 litres of fruit juice which I insisted on taking and filled all of our water bottles up.
Im not going to lie i felt like I had cheated big time but it had saved us hours of pain and thirst so I got over that pretty quick, now was just the main downhill and a couple of little hills to find the Te Wera valley lodge, where we got a cabin for the night with enough room to spread all of our stuff out for only £20, bargain in my opinion.
