Day 45 - Sedona - 12 miles north of Flagstaff (64km)

The morning ride was pretty spectacular up through Oak Creek Canyon. The first 10-15km winded its way up the Canyon until we were faced with a shear wall with a lookout at the top. After negotiating a good series of switchbacks the view back down the Canyon was spectacular!

Flagstaff is a pretty good student town sitting at about 7000ft and is full of outdoor enthusiasts. It is also one of two towns in the US where elite athletes use of their altitude training (the other being Boulder, Colorado). Flagstaff is also surrounded by the tallest peaks in Arizona (rising to roughly 12500ft) and has a local skifield called snow bowl. Given that the annual precipitation in Flagstaff is around 20 inches we were not surprised to find out that the mountain was only open for 15 days last winter!

Given that there were no campsites in the direction we were heading we decided to camp in the National State Forest (where you can camp anywhere for free!) and at a highpoint of 8000ft. Lets just say it was a rather cold night!!

Day 44 - Camp Verde - Sedona (Oak Creek Canyon) (77km)

Nice easy day into Sedona. After surviving a busy road with little to no shoulder to Cottonwood we rode the Scenic road into Sedona. Sedona itself is pretty stunning and is surrounded by red rock formations. Many western movies were filmed here and we could definately see why!

At the supermarket we met a Canadian guy from Vancouver who informed us that the good campsite we were hoping to go to was full. Given that he only had one tent he let us share the tent site. The campsite was up at Oak Creek Canyon and had a swimming hole (water was freezing!)



Day 43 - Payson - Camp Verde (109km)

Looking at the map before we set out we thought we were in for a cruzy 100k day, but it turned out to be one of the most difficult 100km stretches in the entire trip! The locals the previous day had told us that it wsa pretty much downhill into Camp Verde! The first 15km had a decent drop before a gradual climb up to the Tonto Natural Bridge State Park. On the way into the Park there was a sign warning us of a 14% gradient (descent) over the next 3 miles. On the way down we had to put to the back of our minds that this was also the only way out of the Park!

The Tonto Natural bridge is pretty impressive. It is the largest of its kind in the world being 400ft long, 180ft high and a good 50-60ft thick. It consists of Travertine which is built up over thousands of years (similar to the Limestone caves back home). We hiked down to the bottom and were pretty surprised at how big it actually was. On the hike down a couple offered us the chance to put our bikes in the back of their pickup, but turned out they had gone when we got back up. The initial plan was to walk back up the hill to reduce the stress on the bikes and we also doubted whether we could climb this monster with an extra 50 pounds of weight. We dropped down into our granny gears and managed to get up without a pause which surprised us all!

Out of the State Park and we just kept on climbing and climbing. For 30kms around every corner there was another hill which was breaking us phsycologically! Dave got a flat in his new Gatorskins once we finally got back up on the rim (around 7000ft). About 20km from Camp Verde we finally got the downhill that the locals we talking about (6% over 15km).

Once at the Supermarket in Camp Verde a guy, after talking to Dave, asked if he was from New Zealand. Dave cautiously replied yes. The guy then asked if he had met his brother Todd in Del Rio. Back in Del Rio we had met a kiwi and her husband and they invited us around for Pizza. We knew that Todd's brother lived in Camp Verde, but the chances of bumping into him in the Supermarket were pretty slim. Jeff had been to NZ 2 or 3 times and invited us to stay at his place and had a few cold Steinlargers in the fridge which went down pretty well!


Day 42 - Globe - Payson (134km)

After a pretty easy decision we decided to skip going into Pheonix due to heavy traffic and cut the corner through Roosevelt lake to Payson and onto Camp Verde. This would also give us an extra day up our sleeve that we could use later on such as the Grand Canyon.

Leaving Globe we were stoked to leave the dry desert behind and move into a more colourful desert! The landscape is surrounded by red hills and also green from the huge Segoria cactus (of which there were hundreds!). We all wanted the perfect cactus for a photo op, but a few days later the cactuses disappeared so we missed our opportunity!

The road from Gl0be ran along the shore of Lake Roosevelt which was pretty impressive. At the other end of the lake there is a bridge that crossed over the Roosevelt Dam. After posing on the bridge for a photo Dave unscrewed the top of his drink bottle and managed to fumble it over the side of the bridge into the depths below (well beyond reach!).

We stopped at a town called Punkin Centre for lunch. As we were riding in we spotted a sign for 'free food'. Of course we couldn't pass this up! Turned out the local Kiwani Foundation had just received a truckload of food and were in the process of giving it away. If our luck couldn't get any better the ladies invited us inside and fed us even better food of toasted bagels and donuts which went down a treat.

The last part into Payson involved a 2000ft (15km) climb onto the Mongolan Rim (part of a large contintental shelf which runs across Arizona. Given that it was about 30 degress, no wind and the first part of the climb literally went straight up the hill it definately took its toll! Finally got to the top and were rewarded with views of the 'Rim' and a good downhill off the Rim into Payson.