Day Nine - Geraldine to Lake Tekapo

We were all over the long, straight, flat roads from the past couple of days. This section did not disappoint.  

Folling hills out of gersldine to pleasant point where we stopped for 2nd breakfast.  Cafe with no eggs or bacon?  I had a pork riblet and chips. Was very nice. 

Then only the new cycle path to Cave which was flat and enjoyable.

The climbs started from. Cave up to the McKenzie pass. A few steep ups and fun downs. The day was heating up and a splash in a  Ford was welcome relief. 

The 2 big climbs of the day came back to back. A 93m warm up, followed by the 273m main event. At around 100km in for the day this was a challenge. 

As I neared the top a car appeared and I lost traction and stopped for a breath. They pulled over to check I was ok and within moments were offering me beer. As Amanda once said, never refuse a beer, so I ended up with 3 bottles of speighrs to add to me weight for the last few meters of climbing.

It was worth it to have a beer at the top.

From the top the downhill was amazing, the first part had areas of this gravel and I nearly lost it twice.  Gravel biking instinctive reactions kicked in and I managed to recover the skid each time. Perhaps the Beer didn't help my coordination. 

At it level led off we had a tailwind as we sped down a long straight section towards the view of the Alps.

We reached to bottom and turned into the wind. It felt like the bikes were at an angle fighting the power of the wind. It wad a grind, with a couple of turns helping change the wind direction, but never quite enough.

It felt like forever, we finally made it to the final cycle track, 14km to go. It felt a bit like sand but now with a tailwind we made reasonable progress with very tired legs and hungry stomachs.

We finally made it to the good shepherd church. 128km and 2086m climbing, 7:55 cycling. That wad the hardest day yet.

We went straight to restaurant for beers and burgers.

Finally getting to campsite to pitch tents in the dark.