Steve's Cycling Blog

Bloody dogs…! There was a pack of (presumably wild) dogs which decided that in and around our camp was a good place to spend the night barking at anything and everything, so despite the fact that I was pretty tired it wasn’t a great night’s sleep. As Michael said this morning, at most there are only nine more camping nights to go.

It wasn’t so cold this morning which made getting packed up and ready to go more pleasant. Even better the coffee filter which Ozgur fashioned from two bike spokes and a new knitted cotton shirt worked really well, so we had proper coffee!

It’s a pretty short riding day so I lingered in camp (drinking coffee) for longer than I usually would.

Stage 104 route notes

Out on the road and it was actually quite enjoyable riding conditions. I stopped to make use of the bushes – the mosque up the road had been too far to be bothered going to for a loo this morning, and let’s be honest, behind the bushes is usually cleaner and smells better!

I cycled with Brian for a while, then Ron, then Paul, Erwin and Jackie, and eventually on my own as we continued generally downwards.

Out on the road, sun peaking through

At around 30km we came into the top of a large, obviously man-made, lake which we then followed for the next 30 ish kilometres. The combination of the lake and the countryside gave a real Central Otago feel to the riding.

Up the lakes

Eventually I came down to the dam itself, and it’s fairly large!

Into ‘camp’ to discover that we’re not camping but have rooms instead – always a bonus. By the time I’d showered and washed out my cycling gear Jordan had arrived in the lunch truck so I got him to take a look at my bike to see if he could trace the ticking sound which had been getting worse over the past few days.

Turns out the bottom bracket was in pretty poor condition – not really surprising given that it’s done over 12,000km since installed a couple of months before I came away. Thankfully I had a spare, and my permanent bag wasn’t too far down the pile in the back of the van so I was able to fish that out without too much trouble and Jordan had it installed in short order.

Ruth, Michael and I had a plan to wander into town and take (more of) a look around, however before we could head off the rain really set in and is showing no sign of letting up – in fact the forecast says rain for the next three days, which given we’re back to camping for that time isn’t too cheerful!

With the conditions today, and the forecast for the next few days, it’s possible that my LGCC shirt may have ridden it’s last stage. Despite my best efforts, and those of numerous hotels, it’s looking fairly grimy round the edges and if you were being polite you’d call it ‘off-white’ (better known as grey). It’s served me well, but an honourable burial is probably best!

Later: We did manage to wander into town with Bruno as well, and didn’t get too wet in the process – it’s a pretty cool wee town and we had a nice time wandering about. We also managed to find the bottle store – it seems that in this part of the world alcohol comes from specialist stores – this one hadn’t sold a bottle of wine in months by the look of the layer of dust on them and seemed quite pleased to do so.

Back at the hotel and we enjoyed our wine and beer while waiting for dinner, and then with dinner as well – whilst sitting at a table – how civilised were we 😉

With the convenience of solid shelter on a cold and rainy night it was nice not to need to rush off to bed just to stay warm and dry so we sat round for quite a while on the verandah of the hotel while the rain fell.

Riding data

View from my tent

Misty valley views above the hotel