Day 2 and 3 Rakaia Gorge to Lake Tekapo

[climbing out the gorge]

Day 2 started with a big climb out the gorge which lead us onto a gentle downward slope to Geraldine , this sounds great but it was soul destroying long straight roads with no corners or inclines to gauge distance and we just seemed to keep going on the same road. We decided to stop early in Mt somers for lunch at about 35kms. [shop in mt somers]

After lunch we continued onto mayfield where we stopped and a woman told us of a "severe weather warning" so we got out the radio and listened to the news , sure enough there was a severe weather warning for otago and canterbury ....we were sat directly between the 2.

[how we loaded the bikes]

We arrived in Geraldine early and asked at the campsite where the old woman behind the desk assured us that the storm wouldnt hit us. She was right !

[Geraldine campsite ...yes it does look like someones garden there....]

Day 3 started with a gentle climb up to fairlie where we met a bunch of other cyclists on a college excursion. We had lunch here and spoke to them for a bit but we were going opposite directions.

[group of cyclists]

[snow capped peaks]

The road to Burkes pass village was quite gentle but after the village it climbed violently. Ontop of the pass you could be mistaken for thinking it was scotland or the canterbury plains again , very barren and ugly. It then started to tip down with rain so we decided to cycle on quickly to Lake Tekapo ......it wasnt very pretty for pictures up there anyway. We opted for a hostel as the rain was minging and we were soaked through.

[lake Tekapo]

Over dinner in the hostel we met a guy from Belfast who has been riding since june from the uk and has ridden nearly all the way to NZ over europe and the likes! He had some interesting storys to tell ... such as the tandam couple he met carrying 200kgs luggage on the tandem ...