Cycle: 83km

Our morning was even more successful than yesteday as we acquired loads of free food from departing campers! Or maybe that was yesterday....Anyway, our cycle away from Tekapo was along the bright blue ribbon of canal that linked it with Lake Pukaki. It wasn't like the Wolverhampton canal where I used to dice with death of a lunch hour! We even stopped on route to feed salmon in the "World's Highest Salmon Farm", a bargain at $3 and great fun.

The weather had been a bit gloomy but as we got to the southern end of Lake Pukaki the clouds cleared and gave us our first view of Mt Cook, the highest mountain in Australasia (which really is true). We stopped for lunch ('Yesterday's bake') and met a cyclist from London who had damaged his front wheel and wanted some advice. We chatted to Mark from Ladbrooke Grove for ages. He was young (18ish) and had never cycled before but after a month training on a turbo training embarked on a bike tour of NZ. He was nearly done and had plenty of funny stories and route avice for us. Again, we wish we could have spent longer with him and felt a bit bad leaving him on his own with a wobbly wheel.

As we'd spent too long chatting we decided to stop at Glentanner Holiday Park instead of going all the way to Mount Cook Village. All the way there we cycled alongside the green/blue Lake Pukaki and had great views of Mount Cook. We could also see the mountain and lake from our pitch - a great spot. The campsite seemed fun, there was a school party of forty 15 year olds on a geography trip from Auckland and it was nice to be in such a happy, busy kitchen.