Cycle: 33km

Slightly concerned about the unfavourable weather forecast we left our bags at our hostel and headed off towards Rakaia Gorge. The wind was in our faces and there was a gentle ascent up about 200m, so the going was pretty tough. These developed into strong side winds as we descended deep into the gorge before starting our walk.

The walk meandered up the Eastern side of the gorge and it was well worth persisting all the way to the upper viewpoint. The Rakaia River is a glacial river and holds a large amount of rock precipitate. This reflects light and makes the water a truly incredible turquoise colour! This combined with vertical, tall cliffs and with a Mount Hutt backdrop set the scene for an amazing walk.

When we turned around we were greeted with the rapidly approaching weather front. It was quite a sight seeing the cloud hitting Mount Hutt. The walk back to the bikes was through quickly deteriorating weather conditions. The wind swung round to a Southerly and the rain began to fall gently.

Back on the bikes the hill out of the gorge was fun without all our stuff - I'm glad we didn't try to tackle it fully loaded. Unfortunately the heavens opened so after a soggy 16km back into the now turned wind (but luckily down hill) we decided to stay another night in Methven and push out further tomorrow!