Current Location: Stratford, Aotearoa
I’ve been holed up for a few days here in Stratford due to several reasons. One is that the ride from Hawera to here, merely a 30km ride, my right knee went through what I can only describe as excruciating pain every churn of the crank. I ended up stopping every 5 to 10k in hopes that time would take the edge off the pain which didn’t help at all but instead only made the pain more sharp each time I started again. I’m not sure what to chalk up this pain to yet, but several theory include; I’ve jumped into cycling far too vigorously after basically taking 3 months off, I injured my knee somewhere on the farm in Pongaroa, or lastly the clips on my shoe need to be adjusted. I’m honestly not sure which one has done me in. The other reason for the stop here is that it’s the jumping off point for the Forgotten World Highway and there is some nasty weather coming through and I was hoping to do the highway in at least halfway decent weather. I’ve decided even if I have to do the remainder of the ride in 30km increments then so be it, I just hope the weather clears up a little bit to help me.
Not much goes on in Stratford, it’s more of a passing point between New Plymouth and Wanganui or Mt. Tarakani. Though it does have the one and only Glockenspiel in New Zealand. Side note, I thought a Glockenspiel was a musical instrument but it turns out it means musical clock (at least that’s what the sign of the base of the tower says.)
Cycling next to Mt. Taranaki, aka. Mt. Edgemont, aka. Mt. Fuji of the South was nice. Snow capped it really could have been Mt. Fuji erupting out of nowhere and gently sloping down towards the center of the island.
Comments are closed.