Cycle: 86km

The rain was pouring when we woke and had our cycle-day porridge. Our frinedly Oregan cottage-mates left for Mount Cook and left ust us and the odd toilet-dwelling couple(!). As we were plucking up the courage to get wet through the owner of Mountain House came to service our cottage. We chatted to him about cycle touring as we had yesterday. The guy looked like a cross between Bill Bryson and Peter Jackson, was Canadian and very funny. He made us laugh and encouraged us onto the bikes. He also knew all about the local weather systems and told that today was not a true north-westerly, which would see us out of the rain in 10km as the mountains received all the rain, but was a northerly and would keep us wet for a few more km, down into the Canterbury Plains.

He was quite right. We forced ourselves out into the rain, keeping our heads down, getting very wet but enjoying the rollercoaster, mainly downhill ride for 20km. The downhill gave way to more uphill as we climed to go over the Porters Pass for the next 30-40km. The views were pretty good, I thought more Derbyshire than Cairngorms with limestone rock formations, and some dramatic low-level cloud. We made the pass, our highest pass of this circuit, and then whizzed down to 400m altitude into Springfield, the only settlement since we'd left Arthur's Pass village. We checked into Smylies hostel (no camping in springfield), a really homey place. We had a room with five beds in it just or the two of us! It also had the worlds friendlest cat which came running to us, meowing and then jumped straight into my arms for a fuss and a purr! We went to the local coffee shop, the Yello Shack Cafe, for a pre-dinner snack (we went sans-lunch and were a bit wibbly) and beer to experience the area. Back at the hostel we cooked cous-cous and read the 1989 Guiness Book of World Records into the wee hours - fascinating!