Cycle: 131km

The most amazing cycling day.

Last night Scott said "Well, it's not going to be sunny tomorrow." and I agreed with him. But we woke to cloudless blue skies for our PB effort.

We set off in high spirits and passed many voneyards on our way out of the Blenheim area including some areas which were clearly newly planted vines (just as well as we've learnt what a small producer of wine NZ is). Scott was full on photo mode and it took us a long time to churnout the first 45km with all the photo stops! The land was dry and parched but still striking. We passed NZ's only solar powered salt lake works which were pink and stopped for tea and carrot cake (yay, back on our staple diet!) at Cosy Cornerin Seddon (lots of teenage Mums) and Ward where they had a little crayfish display.

Our route then joined the Pacific coast and the views were breath taking today. The waves were crashing really loudly right next to us. Our next stop was the brilliant Store at Kekerengu where we have chowder in bread bowls and enjoyed the sea views without pedalling. With 60m left to go after lunch we felt good and were blessed with a tail wind so picked up our average speed nicely as we neared Kaikoura and the sun lowered behind the hills to our right. I can't beleive how good we felt after cycling 70km already! The highway we rode on and the railway line snaked around each other and at times there was the sea, a beach, the train tracks, our road, some farm land and a mountain all within about 100m! We had to keep a keen eye on our path at times to make sure we didn't pedal off the and and into the tracks below us!

As we pproached Kaikoura, a place I was really excited to go to, there was a road sign warning drivers of NZ fur seals near the road. We had only gone a few metres past this sign when we saw a whle gang of seals basking dusk light! Amazing! We were so close to them and could just stop the bikes and lean over the bank for a closer look! The area is a breeding colony so there were plenty of pups too! As we turned inland for our final approach we caught our first glimpse of the Kaikoura ranges, shrouded in a sea mist and passed a deer farm. We arrived pretty late (too many nice views to stop and admire) but found a nice campsite and had our trusty porridge for tea. We'd pulled off our drunkenly planned 130km day!