Day 47 Te Anau to Tuatapere 103km. Sat around till midday waiting for the rain to subside and drinking too much tea and debating the wind direction. Would it be a tailwind? A headwind? A sidewind? Turned out to be all of them. Bumped into Alan Jay and Zac again in Manapouri having technical issues with their bike, had a pie and set off again. Jericho hill was a doddle compared to it's write up. And then bang. Into a very strong headwind for the last 2 hours. T...

Day 45. Doubtful Sound. A daytrip across lake Manapouri by boat. A tour of the hydro plant with 700MW output supplying 15% of New Zealands power (nearly all of it consumed by the aluminium smelting plant in Bluff). Then another boat trip down Doubtful Sound to the Tasman Sea. Classic NZ Fiordland. Flooded mountain sided glacial valleys with lush native bush clinging to the sides. Inevitable seasickness. Atmospheric mist & rain adding to the ambience. Alan, J...

Day 43/44 Keplar Track 50km walking Bike parked up with Bob and Maxine. Bob rightly insisted on lending us both floppy fishing hats and me a walking stick. He dropped us at the park gate with our packs and enough food to feed a large family for a week (Mark was very worried about being hungry). So we set off and walked along the lakefront and then up through the primary totara and beech forest for a couple of hours. Then beyond the treeline and into alpine terri...

Day 43 Mavora to Te Anau 64km Rain all night, tent sodden. At 8am we decided it wasn't going to stop so packed up and set off in full raingear. Within 30 minutes it had stopped and within an hour it was sunny. After stripping off we headed towards Te Anau. Holly, we broke one of your rules! We fell off!!! Very gently and without injury after skidding on loose gravel. Back onto tarmac we rolled into town at midday, lunched and dithered for a couple of hours and ...

Day 42 Queenstown to Lake Mavora 50km A bit more like it. Early breakfast in Queenstown and onto the SS Earnslaw. A steam boat commissioned in 1911 and in service since 1912, the year the Titanic sank. A gentle chug across the lake, they said. No one has ever got seasick, they said. Well they have now. It took a pot of tea and an hour the other end for the nystagmus to settle. Then a beautiful ride on a dirt track road, up a real gutbuster of a hill and into a...