Longest night ride

With the one in fifty year storm hitting Wellington right on the night of the true shortest day/longest night, we wisely pulled the plug and postponed for a week. Didn't really want to make it into the news as the cycling idiots that didn't listen to the weather warnings and needed rescue. Mother nature dished up a wild night, 200 kmh wind gusts with big swells lashing the south coast.

Below is the road near Days Bay where we would have been at 5am during the height of the storm.

A week later 8 riders headed out of Upper Hutt on the planned Wellington Big Coast loop.

Rolled up the Rimutaka Incline rail trail dodging tree branches downed in the wind but made good time to the summit.  I think this was around 9.30pm with the group cruising along.

Riding through the old train tunnels provided some shelter from light rain.

Once across the Rimutaka hills it was a 30km road ride to the South coast.  This road the week earlier would have had 90-100 kmh gust head winds.

"Lunch" was in order as soon as we found this camping area, around 12.30am and 65km in.  By early estimate that would be around half way however it got steadily slower and harder from here.

There were some strange things out there, like this random gate in the middle of nowhere however someone had thoughtfully cut a bike sized hole in the bars for us to pass through.

About 3am we passed a very isolated hut with what were likely hunters partying and playing spotlight.  I wonder what they thought of 8 riders rolling past? Possibly a bit strange given that all noise stopped and the spot lights were turned off when we road past.

We lost the track for a brief period crossing a wide storm flooded area and the average speed had dropped right down to about 5 kmh for 2 hours.

Photo stops were becoming far less frequent with the dropping temperature and increasing fatigue.  My work colleague Craig shot the image below of the Pencarrow lighthouse with the lights of Petone in the background.

Nearing the end of the gravel and approaching the 100km mark we stopped briefly to check out a shipwreck but it was generally head down pedal on by this stage.

Finished just on dawn; 11 hours, 136km, 1 great adventure.