Day 8: Cambridge to Parachute

Today was the final, and shortest, part of our trip. We left Cambridge Motor Lodge just after 10 and arrived at Mystery Creek Events Centre, the venue for Parachute Music Festival 2011, about one and a half hours later.
We weren't exactly sure of the way when we left, but found our way pretty quickly.
In total, we have push-scootered over 550km in 50+ hours, dealt with 2 broken frames and 6 punctures, and still made it.
A big thank you to everyone who has supported us!

Day 7: Tokoroa to Cambridge

Shortly after leaving Tokoroa, we were stopped by a policeman. Apparently he had received a few complaints about us, but after explaining what we were doing, he sent us on our way encouraging us to be careful and mindful or other drivers.

The trip itself was fairly easy, as we had hoped, and we arrived in Cambridge 5 hours later, a whole hour earlier than we had expected. We will do the remaining 15km of our trip on Thursday in the final Day 8: Cambridge to Parachute.

Day 6: Taupō to Tokoroa

Today, while definitely not the hardest day, was by far the wettest. The rain was supposed to ease off by lunchtime but kept going throughout the entire day, only stopping in the early evening. We managed to get to Tokoroa half an hour earlier than anticipated, but couldn't find anywhere to stay so we stayed the night in Putaruru.
We'll be doing the last main leg of our trip tomorrow in Day 7: Tokoroa to Cambridge.

Day 5: Turangi to Taupō

Today was probably the easiest day so far, we started off in a light rain, and we thought that we would be in the rain most of the day so were prepared to get quite wet, but the rain eased off pretty early so we were dry for most of the trip.
Overall it was downhill to Taupō, but there were a few uphills. However we arrived almost an hour before we expected to, and had an interview with a guy from the Taupō newspaper.
We're going to have another rest day in Taupō tomorrow, and then tackle the last two big days, the first of which can be found in Day 6: Taupō to Tokoroa.

Day 4: Ohakune to Turangi

We started from Ohakune this morning, and set off round the mountain on SH4 and 47. Just after the turn off to National Park, Gerben's parents arrived with Ben's replacement scooter and he eagerly rejoined the scootering.
The road to Turangi wasn't particularly bad; it had its uphills, but they were more than made up for by the huge 5.5km downhill we had just before Turangi. Top speed was over 60km!
We're staying in a batch provided by the Gwynns (thanks!) with Gerben's parents and brother tonight and tomorrow night as we are having a rest day tomorrow.

Come back Saturday for Day 5: Turangi to Taupo.

Day 3: Hunterville to Ohakune

The day started with Ben's scooter breaking just out of Hunterville meaning he was out for the day as we couldn't get a replacement until tomorrow. However Daniel and Gerben made it to Waiouru without any issues and then proceeded to go along SH49 to reach Ohakune just before sunset.

Tomorrow we scoot 84km along SH4 through National Park in Day 4: Ohakune to Turangi.

Day 2: Foxton to Hunterville

Today was far too hot, and I am far too tired to right a proper blog. Might update this one later.

Stay tuned as we battle against intense uphills tomorrow in Day 3: Hunterville to Waiouru/Ohakune?

Day 1: Whitby to Foxton

The day started off fine, with only a light wind and overcast weather keeping us from getting too hot. We reached Waikanae without any issues but then everything turned to custard.

• Daniel’s front tyre inner tube deflated spontaneously, so we waited half an hour for our support car to turn up with the spare one.
• Less than a minute after we replaced it, the spare inner tube popped, with a deafening bang.
• Concluding that the wheel must be the problem, we fitted the spare wheel, only to have it bend out of shape upon inflation of the tyre.
•  Finally, we managed to get a working wheel by using the first wheel, with duct tape and our last inner tube.
• Not long after leaving Waikanae, one of Ben’s inner tubes also popped. With no more inner tubes, we had to send Ben and Tom to Levin to buy some more, while Daniel and Gerben continue to scooter north.
• We seemed to be fine up until Levin, where Gerben’s scooter frame developed a very unhealthy crack, rendering it unusable.

Daniel and Ben ended up scootering from Levin to Foxton where Gerben and Tom had set up the campsite. A replacement scooter has been organised for tomorrow, and hopefully nothing else will break.

Stay tuned for Day 2: Foxton to Hunterville.

Test Trip #2

On Friday, Plannin and I (Pan) scootered from Paremata to Te Horo. This was 45km, half the distance of our trip to Foxton. It ended up taking us 3 hours and 50 minutes including a few small breaks to pump up our tyres and eat some snacks.

The big challenge this time was a northerly wind of 44km/h buffeting against us the whole way. It felt like it slowed us down an incredible amount, but surprisingly we managed to average the same speed as we did on our first trip.

It remains to be seen whether this will severely impact us on our way to Hamilton. Stay tuned to find out.

Test Trip #1

Yesterday we went on our first test trip north, to get some idea of if we could make it to Hamilton.

We did some calculations and decided that we should be able to make it to Levin (~72km) in one day if we scooter for about 9-10 hours including breaks.

The day began with meeting at 7.30am to get organised, we set off at 8am, went to the BP station to pump up our tyres and then began our long journey northwards.

We had planned to have lunch in Waikanae, which was just past half-way, at 12.30pm, but arrived there just before 11am so the only option was to keep going. Our support crew was bringing the lunch up for us so we just kept scootering until he arrived, which was at 1pm just outside the dairy in Manakau.

After refilling with water and sport's drink, we set off again and arrived in Levin at 2.15pm. By this point we had realised that we were way ahead of schedule and had more or less decided to try for Foxton.

Under 2 hours later, we arrived in Foxton, 30 seconds short of 8 hours since we started.

Overall, 90km in 8 hours (including breaks) was a great success and hopefully is a sign that we will make it on our journey to Hamilton in January.