Cycle: 134km

Another tough day on the saddle but our new stragegy is not to do big days for big days sake but only if there is nowhere worth stopping en-route. Today our port of call was Hamner Springs being the only place worth stopping on our way over the Lewis Pass Highway. I can blame Scott for wanting to cycle all the mountain passes but I haven't out up much of a fight, yet!

The sun most definitely did not have his hat on today but we saw more seals in the morning as we travelled south out of Kaikoura. On our first cup of tea stop in Oaro we met Mike Nightingale, a Kiwi who was cycling home from a holiday with friends. He gave us advice on routes and places to see and invited us to stay with him and his wife on our way nroth through New Plymouth!

We pulled west inland and charted uncharted territory by going off Nigel's profile chart! It proved to be a scenic but rather hilly route through a farming vally and we pulled in to Wairoa pretty exhausted! Here we met two English lady cycle tourers! The first Brits we'd met on bikes! Already we've seen far more tourers in the South Island than the North. After clearing the Wairoa Hotel cafe clean out of sandwiches and scones (the waitress was astonished at the amount we ate!) we pressed on for a final stint up into the Southern Alps.

The final push was hard, we had a head wind, the scenery was grey and although we only gained about 300m in altitude there were a lot of undulations. On arriival in the vilage We stocked up on dinner items before finding our hostel for the night. Le Gite is a highly rated hostel with camping and we were welcomed warmly by Brenda and her tabby Janet! Jane seemd to take a fondness for us, well, more so for our kit, especially the tent, and was a great help as we put the tent up! We were really tired again after our cycle and enjoyed the comforts of a 'home' for dinner, showering and relaxing. We slept well apart from when Janet woke me at 4am by coming inbetween the inner and outer layers of our tent, purring. She then performed a circiut of the tent to figure out a way into our sleeping compartment before deciding jumping onto Scotts head was the best way in! He woke up and said sleepily "Janet's on my head" and wondered in the morning if it had all been a dream!