(7,095 km)
\nWe awoke to frost! We’d both been chilly in the night too - a taste of things\nto come. We had a very slow start as the tent was extremely soggy, and Ed\nwanted to dry it out. After hearing fairly regular traffic passing on SH54, we\nwere a little apprehensive, but actually we saw few vehicles during our time\non it. Another highly scenic day! More hills of course - the road undulates\nimmediately, with three reasonable climbs…..but that's just the warm up.\nRiding up to Stormy Point lookout felt like a proper hill - Ed deemed it a\n‘cracking climb’ which is usually a bad sign ;) Wonderful views over to Mt\nRuapehu, with cool river terraces in the foreground. Quite something.
\nWe did deviate from the 54 when we could, but it probably wasn't necessary.\nThe whole ride was great until we entered Feilding…..we headed out of the town\non what looked like a small road on the map, but it was horrendous! We do NOT\nrecommend taking Campbell road / Railway road! An ad hoc deviation was\nrequired.
\nhttps://www.strava.com/activities/1460373645
We shopped in Palmerston North (pleasant and leafy) before heading to the\ncampsite. There's a nice tent space away from the vans etc, although right\nbehind the cabins which are currently full of teenage volleyball teams -\napparently the national championships are happening in Palmy! Big kitchen\nalthough zero utensils, and you have to rent a fridge (only 60c though).
\nWe've bumped into the lady we met in Whanganui (who I think is called Sophie)\nonce again, so it's been great to chat to her. She's following the Tour\nAotearoa route, so took an extra day to get here. She says the route is great,\nbut some is off road so you'd need a mountain bike.
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