Day 14 wanganui to Palmerston North

Having realized what a fantastic back packers this was i wished I had come back after the pint and sang and chatted away as it turns out that the cyclist who waved to me was also a lone cycle tourer from Belgium and had been asked in to the school for cup of tea, saw me pass, and had tried to catch up with me. Bizarre was he went to same back packers but having seen my bike couldn't find me until the morning! We swapped a few stories and hope to catch him at some point but he was staying on to visit a farm etc and I had deadlines to make.

Wish I had stayed too as today ended up being the worst cycle ride of the whole trip to date. What should have been an easy 70km pretty flat (except first part) road ended up being a road of head winds for the entire trip and I struggled getting passed 13km.

Having left at 9am I should have had loads of time to reach palmy in time for gig but with two 10min stops only I only made it to Shannon at 2:30pm absolutely exhausted and legs about to burst. Rang through to cancel gig. Felt soo deflated. Rain started and had to work between walking and cycling to make last 15km. I arrived in at 4:30pm thoroughly broken and felt like I had really let myself down and palmy and in the end wellington for next day. They were both so understanding though and rebooking for later without cycle.

I think I realized that trying to do these long days where I had not allowed for any rest days, plus the specific time for gigs and collecting stories was too much. Average of between 80-100km a day was enough with stopping to collect stories where appropriate so that's what I decided to do till the end and was the best decision for my own sanity. I was pleased though to get another emailed story from wanganui a few days later though. Almost there with the missing areas for my collection and next stage.

Needless to say apart from the piccie of me with the Belgium cyclist at the hostel no piccies were taken that day - no time and nothing to take - dull scenery, horrendous traffic and head wind does not a happy cyclist make!