22nd December (Hot, wild and windy) 73km

I nudged Julia gently awake at 5.30am.That was the time thereabouts that Paul wakes and because he leaves for work at 6.30am, we didn't want to hold him up. Julia made a cuppa when he was awake and I began putting our sleeping gear away. Then we had some Weetbix to start the day.

Keeping to his timetable, we said our goodbyes, with an invitation to come visit us in Taranaki. A generous guy and very interesting.

Shortly after he had driven off, we rolled out onto the main road, with minimal traffic at that time of the morning and headed off to Fairlie. It was a steady plod and we both noticed the backsides were getting a bit sore.

We had considered taking backroads, but the gravel didn't sound appealing to the nether regions, or the tired legs for that matter.  Couple that with the wind that was expected today and all the dust and we were highway bound.  There was also the clincher, everyone we met told us we must go to the Fairlie bake house.  So a long drawn out day in the dust with minimal water and only weetbix and longlife milk, or famous bakehouse, with coffee and pies to die for on a smooth tarseal road?  Well you don't get to this age without learning a thing or two.

Having covered 28kms by 9am, we enjoyed our reward at the famed Bakehouse.  The boys in the pub the night before had recommended the bacon and salmon pie, so I got that, a blueberry muffin and a coffee. Julia got a cheese scone, a briand and her coffee. All were delicious.  

Left Fairlie around 9.45am, heading for Tekapo. Not far out we stopped at The Garage Gallery, open just off the road. The guy working there, not one of the two featured artists, or the photographer, gave us a run down on their work and their prices. 

The artworks displayed in here just blew our minds!

Beautiful stuff on show with an average value of $20,000, increasing to $60,000. One of the pieces was $100,000. Had an interesting chat with him but when we came to leave, a strong cross/head wind had sprung up out of nowhere.                               

Ju and I have cycled in a lot of countries, in all weathers and different terrain, but now we were pushing into a 90km per hour wind. Stopping every couple of minutes, or often less, as we were either being blown off the road, or worse, into traffic racing up at speed from behind. Very dangerous and very scary. After an hour of extremely slow progress, we pulled off the road, into a grassy ditch and ate half a chicken, ham and brie bun we'd bought at the bakery. 

Off into the roaring gale again taking an hour to travel about 7.5km to Burkes Pass. This quaint little collection of buildings contains nic nacs and furniture inside and old bangers, furniture and tiny homes outside. They also did real fruit ice cream. so we got one each. 

After about 45 minutes, we decided to move on, however, the wind now was not only stronger but the way it was throwing our bikes around in our hands, was worrying. Whilst Julia pushed her bike alongside the main road, I tried to ride. Bad mistake. Not only did the gust force me off the road, but it picked my bike up sideways and threw me onto the grass verge. My left leg got wedged under the pedals as I fell, cutting into my shin.

Decided to take shelter in the small local cemetery, which was surrounded by trees and nicely protected from the howling gale.

I was approached by a young man who asked if I would take a picture of his family who were there, re-interring a family member. The story then gets better. At the graveside was an older guy, an older lady, the older guy's son and a friend. The older guy and lady were brother and sister. The ashes they were burying were their mother, who had been buried in the wrong plot, for thirteen years, by the mother's sister. The wrong plot was because she had alzheimers and once she had buried her sister, would not move her. The rest of the family tried in vain, to get their mother in the family plot, but eventually gave up, until the sister, herself died. They then, dug up the ashes in the wooden casket, still in perfect condition after thirteen years in the wrong place and were transferring them to the family plot, hence wanting photographs. I even helped with a bit of gravedigging and was informed as I did so, that Rod Stewart began his working life in the same way.

Julia here - I feel at this point it must be mentioned that I had not only suggested we stay at Burkes Pass village where there was a handy motel, I also thought it might be a good idea to camp at the cemetery.  Pete however decided that the wind was dropping and after consulting with his fellow gravedigger, he agreed with Peter. Now it hadn't escaped my notice that the gravedigger was wearing a shirt with Hard Yakka written on it, but Pete failed to notice. 

Well as we set off once again into this interminable onslaught, I didn't know who I was angrier at, Pete,  Hard Yakka, or the idiot drivers we had to deal with.  I entertained myself with fantasies of how we could stop cycling.  Maybe someone would crash and we'd have to stop and tend to the dead and injured......maybe someone would wipe us out and we'd have no worries anymore.....maybe Hard Yakka would drive past and wipe out Pete and I could eat all five weetbix and the 200ml of longlife milk we had and camp wherever I liked.  Or better still, Hard Yakka's vehicle would survive the crash and we could commandeer his vehicle.

After a long difficult struggle to the top of burkes pass, where we had to push our bikes half the way, we took a breather at the top in a pine forest.  Had reception and the Met service had put out severe wind warnings to our area until midnight. 

The hairometer reads 100kph with 140kph gusts on Burkes Pass

We scouted the area for a possible camping spot and fresh water, but found neither.  We did find a lovely little glade, pockmarked by rabbit holes which was a possibility, but worried one of the creaking, groaning trees might fall on us in the night.  On the plus side we found a delightful patch of lupins with a baby bunny hopping around in front of it. We also hadn't noticed how sore our backsides were since about 11am.

At 5.30pm we decided we'd better try for Tekapo. To say the riding was slow, was an understatement. Just when you thought the wind had subsided, a gust would push you off the road.  Whenever cars were approaching from either way, we would stop and edge off the road and plant our feet to avoid being blown over, especially into the path of the traffic. Stop, start, watch for cars, make a run for it.... painful. 

Guys in utes towing boats or jet skis were the worst, didn't give a damn. It seemed the9 bigger and shinier the ute, the more inconsiderate the driver.  They would think nothing of speeding past us at 100kph, even with oncoming traffic passing us at the same time.  No slowing down, they would just barrel through, not even watching what the wind was doing to the control of the bikes, or to their trailers. 

Below - the front responsible for the horrendous winds looms above the mountains in front of us.

The bleak scenery at Dog Kennel Corner (above) but gradually getting more colourful0 as we get closer to Lake Tekapo (below)

The view to the right could easily be mistaken for a beautiful summer day (above), then you get the view to the left and front (below)

After a terrible ride of nearly three hours, we just managed to get some food from the supermarket, before it closed at 8pm.  Rode to the campground (which of course was another 800m out the other side of town), where we set up tent in the gale, trying in vain to hide behind a small bank of dirt. Charged everything, had something to eat, uploaded photos and wrote the blog. At 11.15pm we called it quits. Everyone else had retired an hour previously. The wind had calmed to a relative breeze. The night sky was beautiful. Easy to see why this is such an amazing place to get the full effect of the solar system.    It didn't take long for either of us to drift off. A great end to a hard slog.