Another late start as Gary had lost the screw off one of his cleats so needed a replacement (this will only make sense to cyclists) and I had frozen the milk for breakfast and the milkshakes for mid morning by accident! It was 80km to our bed for the night at Geraldine, about 10km less than the previous day but no wind so much better going. It was a very hot day again, we stopped about 15km from Methven on one of the straight roads to the state highway for our now milkshake slushy. Then down the road to Staveley, similar size to the one in the Lakes but even more in the back of nowhere. We have discovered NZ cafes and can't pass them by, a cake and ginger beer later and we were back on the road. The views to our right (west) were amazing mountain views of the beginnings of the Southern Alps, we passed various turn offs for ski fields along the way. We arrived at Geraldine at about 5pm with tired legs and sore backsides but in a much more positive frame of mind than the previous day. We got set up at the campsite and started looking for the sunglasses that Gary had lost in the 80 yards between the reception and our tent! Didn't find them. Tea that night was from the local fishmonger that became a chippy at night, had to wait for about 30 minutes but it was worth it, I had Blue Cod and Gary had Butter Fish and they were the best we'd had since Manganui. These were washed down with a couple of bottles of Monteith's Radlers Ale - beer with lemon in so they taste like 5% shandy (apparently radler means cycle in German but I wouldn't have a clue about that).
We ended up chatting to a bloke from the Channel Islands called Chris who had cycled from the UK, he was in theory now on his way home. His bike had way more stuff on it than ours, you couldn't lift it, made us feel a bit guilty about our proposed day off the following day.
You can't just say Channel Islands- which one?
ReplyDeleteIf he's a Crapaud from bloney Jersey then you can't trust im eh! (in Guernsey accent)