Cycling Day Eight

A longer stretch along the trail today, about 70km to do. We heard on the scouts radio that there had been an earthquake in Japan, but it was just breaking news so we set off and were to remain oblivious to how bad things were for days.

We stopped quite quickly on the trail at a place called Lauder where we had Mousetrap - cheese, tomato, bacon and pickle toasties, very nice. We also got sandwiches for later and muffins because we couldn't resist. This will be the only weight gain cycling holiday!

Today the trail involved tunnels, we had prepared with torches to the ready as had most sane people, Gary of course met the mad person who hadn't. The first tunnel we came to was about 130m long and bent in the middle so you couldn't see through. This guy came roaring past we just as I was leaving the tunnel, you are supposed to walk, I heard Gary talking to him and learnt later that Gary was shining his torch so the bloke could see but he still walked into the walls half a dozen times, Gary does seems to attract them.

We passed the Ida Valley dam where the locals go curling in winter and then we had to leave the trail to head for our camp site at Naseby.

We had decided to stay there rather than on the trail as it looked quite interesting and it was. They started planting conifers in the area in 1900 and the area is called the Black Forest. The village is at 2000 feet and seems proper sort of alpine. We didn't get a chance at curling at the indoor rink but did have nice food and a glass of local Pinot Nior at the pub!