Day 3: The Plateau

One of the more interesting things about riding the Heaphy is that you start virtually at sea level one side, climb to around 900 metres, traverse a plateau, and then drop back to sea level. It's awesome.

So today, we started at Perry Saddle, descended 800m to Brown Hutt (the western start), climbed back up to Perry Saddle, and then traversed the plateau and to Mackay Hut. All up, around 1100 m of climbing again. But easier. There's no question it's easier to ride the track east to west. Much easier! And the weather was perfect.

Got to Mackay at 4pm, just before the crowd. A few people didn't make it to the next hut, so it was pretty crowded. Needless to say, a pretty poor nights sleep.

Today: 59.6km, 1100m climb, 6hrs riding