Cycle: 91km (into a headwind)

After a fantastic nights sleep we were awoken by our friendly classic car crew who decided to have their pre-departure meeting right next to our tent. Oh well, we could do with getting up. There were a load of guys on motorbikes too, so it was definitely the tourer's drop-in!

The cycle started really well with sunny weather and gentle undulations. We stopped for our first break after about 16km and met a guy called Steve who we got chatting too. He was a ironman competitor and seemed to be travelling with a similar mentality to us. He was eating sensibly (pie and chocolate for lunch, rather than rice, rice, bread and rice), camping when the weather was good and staying hostels when he felt like it. He recommended a walk or two to us and we were sorry not to be able to spend an evening getting to know him.

Steve was buzzing because it was 11:15 and he'd already covered 75km! He'd been whizzing along with a massive tailwind which, unfortunately for us, meant we had a massive headwind for the rest of the day. This coupled with the fact that it was pretty much uphill for the day led to one of the hardest days we've had yet.

At lunch I'd taken the brunt of the wind and was a spent force. Claire was elated that we'd left the straight level Canterbury Plains until she saw the state I was in! After many sandwiches, much cake and lots of fun with the "Fairlie" theme ("Fairlie Interesting", "Fairlie Good Hotel", "Fairlie Nice Cafe", etc) we pushed on into the wind. Our next stop had closed down so we really struggled through the afternoon. Burke's Pass should have been okay but the steep final km with the wind was very tough!

We'd thought that we'd arrive at the latest by 6pm but finally arrived at about 7:30pm! The friendly campsite manager gave us a discount because we looked so tired! There were two other tourers who looked completely shocked - one guy was sitting on a tree stump staring into space, clutching a beer. His friend was slowly trying to put up a tent, but with little success! They hadn't moved much by the time we'd finished with our tent and walked off to town!

We treated ourselves to excellent pizzas and a couple of beers. You have to when you've had such a punishing day. The walk home revealed some of the best stars I've ever seen. Tekapo is surrounded by mountains so has very little light polution - a real treat after a tough day.