From Auckland to Queenstown (NZ): 20/01/30, Day 6, Miranda Hot Springs to Matamata

Got up at 0600 and was on my way around 645! Not too bad! However this energetic start was not to be followed by an equally energetic day :-(

My mind is just not in the right place. Already after 15k I felt like going to sleep again and it remained like that for the rest of the morning. I’m not quite sure what it is... Maybe (hopefully) it’s still the last leftovers of the long flights overhere. However I was already pretty tired before I went here. Flying back and forth to London every week for the last 8 months... working on an incredibly frustrating project for the last 8 months... trying to get the renovation of my new apartment sorted in the Netherlands... getting quite seriously hit by a car back in September, from which I walked away remarkably well but absolutely not completely undamaged... 2019 was quite an intense year...

I’d hoped that some bike-time and solitude would get me back into shape. So far my mind just seems to work against me. It’s in a negative spiral of self doubt, which I hate because I know I’m incredibly fortunate to be here and I should be enjoying it to the max. Unfortunately i’m just fighting myself at the moment :-(

Luckily my schedule is quite flexible. I can scrape out about 500k of my planned 2500k and still make it to Queenstown!

So today I rode some 118k of my planned 160k. Roads were flat, but gravel, so that took some of the speed out. Next to that I’ve had a headwind most of the day, so that took some more of the speed out. My knees feel a bit off after the climbing yesterday. I could have done with 1 or 2 lighter gears for the climbing. I’m currently falling back to strength too much, while it would be more healthy to add more light rotations... Next to that I’m moving from civilized farm areas to more remote areas after tomorrow, which seems a bit daunting to me...

Anyways... maybe today was just a tiring day. And maybe it’s just the jetlag. In any case I’m going to take it as slow as possible to stay happy and comfortable :-) Potentially my planned route allows to catch up on those delayed 42k

Hope I’m not complaining too much. I know someone as spoiled as me shouldn’t :-)

Sunrise :-)

My view for most of the day

Luckily I get to look around a lot

Riding along mangroves with mountains as backdrop

I like :-)

Crossing this tiny suspension bridge