Friday October 12, 2012, 31 miles (50 km) – Total so far: 31 miles (50 km)
We arrived at Natural High at 10am and proceeded to dump out all our stuff on three tables to sort what to pack in our panniers while Jeremy continued to set up our bikes. He had most of our stuff installed but everything needed adjustments.
It took a lot longer than we thought to pack our panniers. After that our hire paperwork was completed and we were finally on the road at 2:30 pm. The 4 ½ hours just flew by and was actually fun to get us in the biking mood. It didn’t take long to get used to riding on the other side of the road but you really have to look both ways all the time. The “give ways” can be very confusing and there aren’t that many stop signs.
At our lunch stop in Kaiapoi the radio announcer said that tomorrow’s weather was going to be miserable and to put on a fire and a stew. Before we left Andy of Natural High pretty much said the same thing about a system dropping down to the South Island bringing rain, strong winds and cold. At that point we decided that we didn’t want to camp the first night so opted for a motel room inside a camp ground in Amberley after riding 31 miles. It was only four hours on the road but with increasing head winds.
We ate nachos at a local pub where the bartender said, “Those nachos will make you pedal your bike” and “It’s only uphill from here mate” when I told him we were headed to Picton. It was a good day and felt great to be back on a bike after 8 months in the Antarctic. Plus one year ago we were on our cross country U.S. trip. It’s great to be back on the saddle!
