Taupo to Bulls

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Blog entry: 8th September 2019 ‐ Day 194 ‐ NZ Leg 3

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While the previous day was a grey day we didn't have any real rain during the first two legs. This morning at the lake front in Taupo indicated that today would be a day of rain.

It was cold & a light drizzle was over us as we ate our free scones & drank our free coffee courtesy of ACC marking Motorcycle Awareness Month. This was our starting point for the third leg of the relay.

During the safety briefing, we were informed that the Desert Road was closed due to the snowfall overnight so we would be taking a slightly different route. Overnight snowfall! that explained why it was so cold eating breakfast.

We headed out of Taupo with a police escourt & headed to Turangi. I wasn't sure what the route would be but suspected we would take SH47 & 49 to Waiouru where we were stopping at The National Army Museum so I was a little surprised to find myself, along with all the other women in the relay, riding through the snow lined Desert Road.

This was such an awesome surprise. The atmosphere was unbelievable; it was super cold (−1°C) & I loved riding through this part of the road & as I had never ridden a road with so much snow lining it so this was a joy. There was also a lot of fog so the whole area had a slightly exciting & eerie feeling to it. Here, here & here are some shots of the road by Shayron the relay photographer

The road conditions were not ideal for some of the riders & at times the ride pace where I was dropped to a crawl & I did find this really frustrating as I was more confident than these riders in front of me. When I was stuck crawling at 25KM & the slow riders didn't move to the slow vehicle bay, I did start to get really annoyed as there was no safe place to pass given that they did not move into the slow bay.

Once we had ridden through the tight corners of the Desert Road, I found a stretch where I could safely pass the riders infront of me. Once at Waiouru, I stopped to refuel before parking up at The National Army Museum. We had a break & a photo opportunity in front of the tank at the front of the museum. You can see us all here. I'm the one with the Dainese jacket & green balaclava slightly left of centre.

The remainder of the route to Bulls continued down SH1. The whole day's riding was very cold & we had rain accompany us for a lot of leg 3. We arrived in Bulls by The Mint Café. This break between legs felt really rushed & some of us did not have time to finish our lunch while others packed theirs away after having a quick bite before jumping back into the saddle for leg 4 of the relay.

This leg was the first leg that had a number of regrouping stops which extended the amount of time on the road. I found the regrouping stops a bit disorganised &s; tiring but I also realised that as the Road Captain & the Tail End Charlie did not use any form of on the road communication that they needed to make these stops. This was a big difference between yesterday's legs & today's as yesterday they were in constant communication as they rode.

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