Tuesday January 7, 2014

Another great day of cycling.  The morning started off cold and slight rain showers.  We got the tent down before it started to rain and we had a few rain showers for the first 20kms.  We also had a few small ‘bumps’ to get up and over after Amberley, then we had the tail-wind from heaven.  We came over the last little hill and cruised down the other side it was awesome, I didn’t pedal for about 2 kilometres.  I was laughing so hard it was tremendous.  I had to touch my brakes as we went over a railway track, then I pedaled a couple of times and again just cruising at 29+ kph how good does that feel?  Amazing.  My new Garmin tells me when I have completed a personal best – Fastest 40 kms today.  Not that this is a race, but it did feel good to be doing my usual 29+kph on my touring bike.  We got in to Amberley just after 12:30 had something to eat and decided that we would stay here overnight. It is a lovely little Town and we had time to have a nice wander around.

We could have easily got into Christchurch as we were both feeling good, but we have a warm-showers arranged for tomorrow night and the next night.  An extra rest day this week, because we wanted to spend an extra day in Christchurch.  I hope to get the blog updated.

We met a lovely older gentleman in the camp kitchen today.  He lives here permanently and has a little vege garden.  He cut some swiss chard for us so we will have a stir fry tomorrow.  We also met a lovely Austrian girl (Verenna) who is travelling around New Zealand doing some climbing and touring.  She has just qualified as a teacher and will look for a job when she gets home at the end of February. She invited us to stay with her when we go through Austria, she lives south of Vienna.

We see lots of old cars along the road.  Ralf spotted this one in Amberley.