40 Hour Famine Ride to Hamilton and Back...

So, after a few 'ums' and 'arhs' and 'yeah and nahs' we decided 'yes' we would do our 40 Hour Famine ride on the first weekend of the Holidays.

Getting ready to leave from Drury

On Sunday morning my mate, Sam from school, and I got ready to ride to Hamilton and back, to raise money for the 40 Hour Famine. Which this year is helping out the children in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea.

There were great views along the way,
I found it quite fun for a road ride!

The weather wasn't looking so promising so we decided to start our ride at Drury. On the first day we had Sam's Dad riding with us and his Mum was our support car driver and official photographer. For the first part of the ride we managed to dodge the rain, but then we went from jackets to no jackets and to jackets again. The strong winds kept the rain clouds rolling through and nearly blew us off a few times! Along the top of the hills we were riding on extreme angles leaning into the cross winds!

 

Getting out of Auckland was a little
hilly. I could feel my legs after riding
 nearly all Saturday at the Dawn to Dusk.

Hot soup from the best shop in Taupiri!

The way down was hard work trying to ride into the head winds and after doing lots of work up the front Sams dad decided to get in the support car at Huntly. So the two of us continued riding towards Hamilton, that was until we decided to head back to Aucland... Sam was sure it was the right way and I knew we could go that way, but it was the wrong way! At Ngaruawahia we had taken a left and started heading back up north with the wind. It was great with the strong tail wind but when we hadn't seen the support vehicle for awhile we decided we should stop and try to contact them. Then we realised both our phones were in the car! In the end we found a nice little fish and chip shop in Taupiri where we could call Sams parents.

The Huntly Power Station in sight. 

Look at that perfect formation!
We needed it to battle the strong head winds.

 
They were so nice and even gave us some hot soup while we waited to be found...

We stayed the night at my uncles and aunts place in Tamahere, they fed us a second dinner which we happly ate. After a good sleep we were up, on our bikes again and heading back to Auckland. There were no clouds in the sky, which was good but it was freezing. when we started Sams cycle computer read it to be 1 degree celsius! By the time we got to Ngaruawahia I decided I needed a hot chocolate or my fingers might fall off!

Thanks to Sams mum Sharon for the
awesome photos! 

After that I could actually enjoy the ride home and it was nice to have a bit of a tail wind after fighting the elements on Sunday. I really enjoyed the quite back roads through the scenic farm land. I haven't done a lot of road riding, but I am sure others would like the route we rode. We based it on this impressive ride Martyn Pearce did. You can view his route here: http://www.strava.com/activities/38591648  

Exhausted after almost 300 km's over
two days with head winds and hills! 

I hope that through everyone's donations we have improved the childhood of children in Papua New Guinea. A huge thanks to Bruce Weir for lending me his speedy road bike and my uncle and aunt for having us for the night.
I believe you can still donate HERE. Or if you see me before the end of the holidays I can still take cash donations.