Cycle: 95km

The weather looked icky again and we were the last to leave Shooters backpackers in the morning as we delayed setting off. Scott had to fix his puncture from the previous evening and I booked our Stewart Island transport and accomodation. That job done we waited a further 60s for a heavy downpour to pass and then set off into a head wind in just light drizzle.

We cycled due south into a headwind until we hit the Southern Ocean and then turned east to turn it into a side wind. Sadly, our day of hitting the south coast of New Zealand for the first time (woo hoo!) was pretty miserable and was spent dreaming of the warm cycling gear we would buy in Invercargill (Invers) and the home we were heading to. What a great day to be arriving at a real home! Our aim was the home of Tim de Gruchy, a school friend of Scott's, and his wife Sam, who had settled in Invers last August. They had been kind enough to answer our plea of a bed!

En route to Invers we stopped in Pavillion Tavern in Colac Bay for a bowl of soup and a super pot of tea (they could do tea well!). The surfing beach was devoid of surfers (the waves looked too dangerous to me) but there were a few kite surfers round the corner in the next bay. We then made it as far as Riverton and stopped again for coffee and cookies in a paua shell jewellery shop.

After Riverton we headed north-east and got the benefit of a stiff tail wind to blow us quickly into Invers. Our first point of call was Woolworths to buy some booze to turn up to the de Gruchy's with. We did two whole laps of the supermarket before contemplating that maybe they didn't sell alcohol...this was indeed the case (a local bylaw that means only off licences sell booze) and so we called into Liquor World or the equivalent. Loading up our panniers with bottles we cycled through the city and turned off towards the airport, following Tim's directions. It was dark by now but the necessity for lights gave us several brainwaves to enable us to use our lights. We swivelled Scott's tent bag by 90 degrees and put the head torches on our handle bar bags. Why hadn't we thought of this before. The last part of the ride to Otatara was right into the damn wind - grrrrr! So we arrrived a Tim and Sam's a little shell shocked and knackered but forgot our woes within two seconds of meeting them both, being handed tea, red wine, seated in front of a fire and being given a lovely bedroom complete with a jar of shortbread. Heaven.

We had a lovely evening, for me getting to know Tim and Sam and for Scott catching up on the eleven years since he'd last seen Tim!