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We all awoke refreshed and still enjoying the pleasant surroundings of Clyde. Stellar the dog enchanted everyone with her ball fetching skills. Our good intentions to depart as a group were blown away by news that a headwind was expected mid morning. Tony, roger, james, Hans and sean set off immediately to catch the still air. The others enjoyed their breakfast before departing for cromwell.
the morning's ride alongside the resovoir was particularly scenic and the feared wind was not so bad, at least compared with our experience on day two (the rail trail), so it was a good start to the day.
Most of us gathered in cromwell for lunch. A requested photo shoot for the otago daily times at the 'fruit bowl'- a famous local sculpture - fails to materialize. martin followed signs to old cromwell, a small group of 'quaint' buildings relocated when the resovoir was filled, and lunched alone next to a plastic horse (we call him Bob).
in the afternoon the promised headwind arrived, making it hard going even on the flat. Plus, the mercury sword. we each drank six to eight litres of water. Frequent rest stops meant riders seperated out. Another puncture ended Ken's day early.
roger and tony led the charge towards queenstown. James and Hans passed martin and caught up with the leaders a couple of times at rest stops, but ended up riding mostly alone. All the international riders noticed the large amount of road kill, mostly possums but there were a few x rabbits and even an x hedgehog.
At a cheese shop in Gibbston, a locally resident austrian woman was excited to meet hans and demanded all the news from "back home".
In the heat and relentless headwind this section dragged especially as there was a complete absence of distance information. Eventually, at the crown range turn off, a sign appeared. we hoped it said three or five km to go, but in fact it was nineteen. This was the final straw for Barry, who accepted a lift at five pm. Nick and Martin struggled on but gave in to the sag wagon at seven pm. The rest made it home to Queenstown.
Mind you, our first experience of heavy traffic on the final run through frankton to Queenstown brought out Hans' strong views on road width and traffic behaviour.
Queenstown is rapidly growing, driven by winter sports and multiple summer activities, and is apparently especially popular with asians.
Our accomodation provided a high point to end the day. A spacious flat with spare beds and an enormous kitchen/communal area/unicycle workshop. Our day ended with a communal indian feast and the prospect of a free day to recuperate, adjust our bodies and machines and have a little fun.
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The first item on the agenda was throwing Connie off a bridge, as the group's thanks for all her hard work supporting us. This happened at kawarau, the original commercial bunjee jump. James, tony and sean liked the idea so much that they jumped too. It's a lemming thing. On the way back to queenstown we took a short diversion from the foot of the crown range to the top to get a preview of the next day's ride. This excited a number of us.
Following this excursion we stopped off for morning tea in arrowtown before dashing back to Queenstown so Ken could meet up with Bridget. Apart from some kayaking (followed by an attempt to drown ken), some luge riding and some unicycle repair the day consisted of sloth in large quantities.
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