Cycling NZ26 - Day 9 - The Timber Trail Lodge

 It’s 0452 Zulu and I’ve scratted myself to death!  The little red pinpricks where the bloodsuckers have held a bit of a shindig cover my feet. And boy do they itch!  That along with a sore throat and a cough that has been developing over the last few days means that not only am I fighting the scenery but also the wildlife all the way down to the size of a virus. 

I must look like the world’s best smorgasbord to the critters. I thought last night that I heard a distant oompah band playing but no i think that was just Hairy Melon burping.  I look at a photo of myself taken deep in the bushes with my top off trying to wring myself out and yes I agree I do look like a smorgasbord. One made out of a rotten tree trunk of which there are many here!

What’s happened Wayne?  All that taught muscle and drop dead good looks. Where has it gone?  LOL!  At the best of times I looked rather like a puffed up bit of a sugar puff kernel. Just a rather large one. But now my body looks like balloon dog on a rather deflated day. It’s the kind of body one may one day learn to love but for sure will regret ever owning. 

I take another long look in the mirror this morning and for the first time really think about my age. Was this really a good idea Wayne?  Look at yourself. How do you feel?  Perhaps not bad. But nothing like you did as a younger man. 

Remembering the days post the American Football playoff game back in the 80’s coming into the bar with massively bruised forearms and taught muscles smashing down pints of lager and tons of food to then get up and enter into a strongman competition to carry a 25 gallon (approx 100 kilo) full keg of beer and only just losing that competition to the man mountain 6ft 6inch John Keers. I’m all pumped up. A rock solid bag of muscles and as strong as a proverbial cart horse.  

I look at my feet. What the hell. When did those critters get me. Oh yes. Perhaps in Mozzie hell. Yes I remember now. The rain started at about 4am. I’m wrapped tight half asleep in my wet bag. I unzip the inner fly. Reach out to close the outer rain sheet because the previous evening was so warm. Roll over snd go back to sleep. Only to be woken what seemed like moments later to a tent full of swarming mosquitoes. Aw FECK!  I quickly close the inner fly sheet cos everybody likes a lock in don’t they. I grab my phone and pull the sleeping bag over my head. 

Now you don’t have to be a physics professor to know that a sudden lift of anything will generate an area of low pressure air and the laws of airodynamics / thermodynamics / hydrodynamics and just plain bloody common sense, if I had any, well one would conclude that there would be an inrush of air from the zone of higher pressure to the lower..

I turn my phone on to see that loads of mozzies had ridden in on that low pressure wave and had filled my sleeping bag!

God knows what the other campers thought I was up to but to see a fat old man thrashing around inside a tight sealed wet with sweat as soft and chewy as a marshmallow might ever be sleeping bag attempting to kill or eject the unwanted party guests must’ve looked like some alien critter pupating in the dark.  Being reborn in a way i really don’t ever want to be. Like this (warning this is from the film the invasion of the body snatchers - it’s scary! But this is the image that is projected between my ears as I write)

https://youtu.be/N4KdJQpqU4w

Best laid plans n all that.  The stop at the Timber Trail lodge is one of my best ever decisions. 

Even on Friday the 13th there is some good luck to be had. To get nice and chatty with the locals of excellent meals at communal tables still feels a little weird for shy old me. But the folk here are just lovely. First class Zelanders. Staff and guests alike.  Again I am told that if I get to Whanganui then I must stay with (oh dear I've forgotten their names but both have something to do with printing holiday brochures - or something like that!)

I’m getting well behind in my schedule. But that is ok. I’m bring taught something quite important here. You are no longer that monstrously strong young man any more Wayne. Cycling to the top of Ben Nevis. Every Day. Do you really think that is a good idea?

Today’s ride will take me back down to a decision point.  The town of Taumarunui. Here I decide whether I continue to push myself up and over another set of Ben Nevis’ or consider the lower road options following the Whanganui River down to the town of that name on the coast. 

My destination remains Christchurch and for sure to get there I’m gonna have to give up on the Tour Aotearoa route designed by the mad Kennett brothers.  You are chesty with a sore throat and a small cough. Be kind to yourself old man.  

Realising its time to let go of a younger ambitions is something you’ll just have to learn. 

But that is just all part of today’s lesson isn’t it. 

Ciao for now