Monday January 13, 2014

Another day, another wind this time not in our favour and this time with added hills.  A tough day of cycling.  Yesterday we cycled 50 ks in 2hrs 18 mins, today was 45 ks in 2hrs 58 mins.  You win some you lose some.  The scenery was still stunning and the hills were manageable.

We had planned to try and get to Lake Tekapo (90 kms) but had the contingency plans of Fairlie and Kimbell.  Fairlie has a campsite, Kimbell doesn’t.  Fairlie it is.  Again very clean facilities and great people in the kitchen.  Tomorrow we will get to Lake Tekapo, hoping the winds are in our favour again.

At one point we watched the wind blowing through a barley or oat field, the patterns it was making up the hill was stunning.  You can’t get the full effect from the photo, but it still looks pretty good.

MacKenzie District – was named after a Scottish sheep rustler who found a way over the mountain pass with stolen sheep and then set up his own station. He was caught and put in jail.

Today we met a very impressive couple.  We had seen them cycling through Town on a tandem with a large trailer on the back.  We thought it was a bit over the top for two young people to be carrying so much.  Until we got into the camp site and saw two extra little helmets on the trailer.

This young couple were travelling with their 17 month old twin girls.  That is impressive.  They were a really nice couple, English and Australian travelling for a month in the South Island.  They had heard the North Island roads were bad so decided to do the South Island.  We had a long chat with them and they told us how they travelled with the girls – allowing time for them to play in the morning and then by the time they start cycling at 10:00 ish the girls are ready for their first nap.  They stop when they wake up and let them play again and then cycle again a couple of hours later.

There was also a very inquisitive blackbird.