Touchdown (Hot and sunny) 90km

 Caution..... If you feel squeamish, uneasy or offended reading this material, I suggest that rather than get yourself uptight, simply stop reading. If you don't take life too seriously and can laugh at yourself and sometimes others, then join us for the ride..... So....As those seven vertically challenged guys from the fairytale sang... Hi ho..Hi ho.....  it's cyc-ling we go. 

Three years after our last overseas cycle tour, here we go again, this time in our own backyard, covering parts of the South Island. Last time I cycled here, in 1986,  I did main roads around the mainland, which was a nightmare a lot of the time, with trucks and coaches either forcing you off the road, or sucking you perilously close to their tyres. This time, thirty five years later and with Julia by my side, we are taking as many off road options as we can.                                                

Brody was promptly on our driveway at 5am, to give us a lift to the airport. After a very easy check-in, we sat with coffee, talking until our flight at 6.30am. It will be a different Xmas this year, not having  the kids around, but hopefully they will enjoy our blog. The flight was perfect with some cloud, but plenty of sun. On board, we met Susan who we know from New Plymouth  who was on her way to Twizel to meet husband Rob, with their eleven month old son who is just about ready to start walking.  

As we flew over the South Island, we had stunning views of Mt Cook, it's white peaks standing out against the blue sky.  Touched down perfectly in Christchurch under sunny skies at 8.15am. Breakfast in the terminal and now to reassemble the bikes! This is something we don't do everyday, so we had carefully labeled all parts so we knew which ones belonged on which bikes.

Obviously Julia was responsible for labeling.

Finally at 11am, we're ready for the road.

That took us a couple of hours before we were on the road to Hornby, looking for a gas cannister. 

It's not every day we venture into a gun store. But they did have the gas cannister we needed for our stove.

We were only on the main road for about 6km before we turned west, onto Waterloo Road.  We were casually looking out for somewhere to buy lunch, but were wary of buying anything too early on, as it was turning into a hot day and we didn't want our lunch to spoil in the heat.  We were beginning to worry we'd missed our opportunity as we cycled through farmland and crops with no shops in sight. But bang on 1pm we cycled into Rolleston where we spied a cafe for lunch and then bought some fruit for breakfast at the last supermarket for a while. 

Feeling relieved that we wouldn't have to cycle to Rakaia Gorge on an empty stomach,  we relaxed and appreciated the freedom of being back on the road. A sunny day, a light breeze and lovely scents along the way from the pine trees, the eucalyptus,  but most of all the fields of clover. 

Then it was a long few hours in the sun just plodding across the plains on a dead straight road for 18km where we finally got to Charing Cross, looking slightly different from the London version.

Then it was a slight turn and up another 15km of dead straight road to Horoata, where we bought two well needed ice creams.  The shop owner cheerfully told us it was 36km to Rakaia Gorge, and all uphill.  Ju was surprised as she'd thought it was flat all the way. An interesting thing perspective, because coming from New Plymouth, it was dead flat. But coming from the Canterbury plains, maybe she noticed the slow gradual incline all the way to the gorge.  We didn't notice until we were whizzing down to the gorge late in the day.  We had been sweltering along the plains, getting tired with aching butts using any excuse to stop for a break.

When we finally got to Rakaia Gorge, the water in the river wasn't glacial blue, but dirty grey after all the recent rain.  And once we started flying down to the river, a cool wind was roaring through the gorge and the cooling swim we'd been longing for all afternoon was suddenly no longer on the agenda.

So instead of a cool dip, we took a relaxing hot shower at the lovely campground overlooking the river. Cooked some dinner and had all our warm stuff on as we ate and admired the view. We were grateful to climb into our sleeping bags for great sleeps, after a long 90km first day in the saddle.