TA Day 13 - Whanganui to Rangiwahia

 63.9 miles, 5089’ climbing

Camping at Rangiwahia Community Center

After breakfast near our hotel, we headed to the Durie Hill elevator, just a few blocks away and the next checkpoint on the TA. It’s a tunnel leading to an elevator built in 1919 to give residents at the top of the hill access to town, all restored and working. We laughed at the multicolored lighting in the tunnel, and the charming elevator operator gave us facts, snapped photos, and made us laugh.

It was a day thru the hills past farms with patches of natural forest, lots of sheep and cows. As before, the sheep farmers seem to get around on four wheelers, often with working dogs riding and following behind.

We stopped in Huntersville for lunch and chatted with another couple on the TA. After lunch and a brief, tense ride next to big trucks, we turned off on gravel for more hills. 

There were two other pairs of cyclists at the Rangiwahia community center: one pair of northbounders from the UK who hiked the South Island and are bikepacking the north, and one pair of Americans on the same TA brevet as us, the first Americans we have run into. We’re all in tents behind a quiet community center with water and electricity. There’s a shower requiring nz$2 coins, so we had to share a quick shower since we only had one coin. Nice folks to meet. It should be a quiet night except for the local livestock (is that a donkey braying?).