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Published: March 2nd 2018
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Day 4: Parekai Springs to Hanua, 120 or so km, more like 140 with all the wrong turns the Donkey took Today was a sad day for both Showponey and the Donkey. Showpony was once again poorly overnight and the two friends agreed that it was not a good idea for Showpony to carry on so the Donkey was suddenly by himself. He panicked as now he had to do all the thinking. Showpony had done most of it till then; he had covered all eventualities including potential calamities some of which had come true. And today was just the day the Donkey needed Showpony more than ever as he had to navigate through Auckland, the biggest city of New Zealand, and it is well known that navigation is not one of a donkey's strengths, in contrary, most donkeys need arrows, cones and marshals to point them in the right direction. Today the Donkey was going to get lost, that was a certainty. So he decided to leave early, so early that it was still pitch dark. That was the first of many mistakes the Donkey made that day. Because except for pitch darkness it was also raining and the
road the Donkey was on was very busy with angry trucks and impatient early morning commuters who did not have much consideration for a Donkey on a bike riding in the dark in the rain. So he was tooted at, nearly run over and sprayed by the trucks from the water on the road. The Donkey felt lost, even if he was not really lost as the map, lighting up on his mobile phone, indicated that he was on the right road. He contemplated the fact that feeling lost and being lost are two different things. For a moment he thought himself very clever knowing the difference.
Then Headwind turned up but at least it stopped raining. The Donkey got down on his aerobars and got to work. That is what donkeys are good at. Coming into Auckland he passed all the cars that had whizzed passed him before. The Donkey waved at them when it was his turn to pass them. Who would want to live in Auckland he thought, as you would never be on time for work, but then, perhaps that was not a bad thing as if everyone was late no one would notice. The
Donkey decided that if he ever lived in Auckland he would always bike to work. The Donkey was passed by a lot of other bikes, most of them, he noticed, were electric bikes. First it made him angry, there he was slogging it out with his heavy load while these cheats flew past him, hardly pedaling and with only a small bag hanging from their shoulders. Then he had another brilliant thought. If he moved to Auckland he would also get an electric bike but he did not say this out loud as Spot would not be happy. Spot called electric bikes fake bikes but the Donkey contemplated that it was fake times with all the fake news so he might as well join the fakers.
Finding the center of Auckland was one thing, getting out another. At one stage the Donkey crossed the same bridge for the third time. The batteries of the Donkey's GPS, which he had inherited from Showpony, had gone flat and he relied on the written instructions. The Donkey could read well but did not have his reading glasses on so being able to read did him a fat lot of good. At Mount Eden, a photo check point, the Donkey and Spot got separated when the Donkey had a coffee and Spot got bored and decided to go for a wander. After a frantic search the Donkey found Spot on top of Mount Eden, chatting up a nice looking bike from another tour rider. They had lost valuable time so off they went, in exactly the wrong direction. The Donkey was well and truly lost. Just when he was going to sit down for a wee cry a staunch looking dromedary came past. A dromedary is a camel with only one hump, the Donkey thought himself very clever to know that. The dromedary looked as he knew where he was going even if he was cross-eyed and had bendy legs. Do you know where you are going? The Donkey asked. The dromedary nodded and so the Donkey joined up with the dromedary and they shared the work. Then the phone of the dromedary rang. It was in his back pack so he had to stop and the Donkey was alone once again. Then the Donkey made mistake number 1001 for the day. When he was freewheeling down a steep hill trying to break the speed record for the fastest downhill for older donkeys he missed a turn-off at the top of the decent. He saw the turn-off when he flew past but was making such good speed that he carried on regardless. This meant that once he arrived at the bottom of the hill he had to turn around and bike all the way back up again, He just missed the record as well so it had been a wasted effort. Towards the end of the day the Donkey was finally out of Auckland and on a quieter road when he saw a white bunny with a black eye sitting on the road. Donkeys and rabbits get on fine generally so the Donkey asked the rabbit how he got his black eye. The rabbit answered that he was born with it and was proud of it. Good on you said the Donkey and wished the rabbit well. Tired and hungry the Donkey arrived just on dark at his accommodation in the hills South of Auckland, near Hunua. The lodge was called the Bike-bunker and there were many other tour animals staying but the Donkey was too tired to socialise and went to bed early.
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