After getting up, Ariki surprised us: Not even fully dressed, he went directly from the tent to the trailer and wanted to sit in and put on the helmet. 😊
But before we set off, breakfast, tent dismantling and packing were still on the agenda.
As on the second part of the previous day, we drove on small, mostly well paved side roads through the beautiful, lake-rich and forested vacation area. We enjoyed the sparse traffic on the small roads. However, the many short climbs, which we did not expect based on our route planning, were quite strenuous.
In Wascott we replenished our supplies in the gas station store and strengthened ourselves with fine ice cream and milkshake.
The strengthening should still prove to be really important: As before the break, the route was at first quiet and partly steep. According to plan, we then drove a few miles on a large road. Since this road was not so pleasant to drive on because of the traffic, we were mistakenly glad to branch off again onto a forest road. At the beginning it was also quite good, but suddenly gravel turned into sand and the progress became difficult. In the beginning we managed to ride short sections shakily. Then we had to push and pull until we had finally covered more than a kilometer. Basically, at the beginning of the sandy track we had discussed turning back and taking the longer way over the main road, but (unfortunately) the principle of hope won.
To compensate the bad sandy track, we could then enjoy an asphalt side road through the forest without major climbs on the remaining stretch.
So we finally reached the beautiful cabin of the Stensvold family at Miniature Lake, where we could meet Sigrid and Kevin again in reality for the first time since our tour in 2017.