After the previous day's endeavors, I felt remarkably good this morning, so Anne and I decided to get up early, check out of the studio and head off on a tour of the Coromandel Peninsular north of Coromandel Town. The day was sunny with a light breeze (ideal riding conditions really) and the scenery on the way up the West Coast of the peninsular was stunning. The rocky coastline is very dramatic and the road winds its way along the coast, occasionally heading upwards to run along the top of the cliffs. The road is gravel all the way from Colvile to Fletcher Bay and it was interesting to see the road from a different perspective to that I'd seen the previous day. For a start, some of the ascents were steeper than I remembered them (probably the ones that I walked) and some of the descents seemed pretty scary, when you looked at the drop offs over the edge. I hadn't noticed it so much the previous day, the mist and rain tending to flatten the perspective and also when the rain was heavy, I was having to squint to see where I was going – that sounds sensible doesn't it.
When we arrived at Fletcher Bay (at the end of the farm track where I'd washed the bike yesterday) there were a group of walkers just finishing the track. “What's the track like”, I asked inquisitively. “It's a great walk, but those bloody mountain bikers have made it an absolute mud bath” came the reply....ooops.
The only way back from Fletcher Bay is to retrace your steps down the west coast of the Peninsular, so it took us about an hour to get back to Colville, from where we headed over to the East Coast to do the first 16km's of the ride that I had done. This bought back all the memories of those first few hills and just how hard they were to ride. The drive wasn't a whole lot better, with loose gravel, tight blind hairpins and an exceptionally narrow road. The three cars I met on the road were all near misses and the views at Port Charles and Stony Bay did not warrant the effort to get over the hill and make the return journey back. Tick – been there, done that, don't need to do it again.
We got back to Coromandel at about 3:00pm and headed for a small restaurant for our first food and refreshments for the day. By the time we finally ate, we were both famished and the Steak Sandwich and Spinach and Feta pie were a huge relief to our screaming stomachs. After lunch we headed over to Whitianga, where we are staying for two nights. The road over the peninsular to Whitianga is fortunately sealed, but it is also very windy. There is a 200k road bike ride that does a loop of the bottom part of the Peninsular and one of the sections is to ride over that hill. When I do that ride, that's one of the hills I'll have to prepare myself for. It looks like a real mission.
We are booked in for two nights at the Marina Park apartments. These are new one bedroom apartments in a big complex and although they are very nice, they are completely modular in their construction and the sound proofing is pretty minimal. When people leave early in the mornings, you here every door opening and closing (slamming). For Dinner we went to the local pub for some pub grub food – nothing flash, but nice enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment