Today we were shuttled from Nelson (where we had been shuttled to after Okiwi Bay) to Motueka, the place where I had left my passport 3 days earlier -- did I mention that I did get it back?). This cut out the section of route 60 (and 6) that David and I had done already twice. We started immediately on a much quieter road and that pattern continued all day, barring about 2 km of route 6 that we hit in the middle of the day. It was quite idyllic cycling. Few cars, lots of interesting sights, beautiful scenery.
Strangest animal sighting of the day was a venison farm with several all-white deer.
One road, just after our coffee stop at a sort of local arts market, was beautifully tree-lined. A welcome sight, although it was by no means hot. It was, however, quite windy, pretty much always a headwind.
We were following a number of streams, so we were steadily climbing, but it was quite gentle and, despite the wind, hot terribly hard work for the first part of the day.
David was happy because we saw a number of llamas, although almost never in with the sheep as we so often see them at home. This one seemed to have a bit of a palsy, or something. He just stood in the stream and shook his head gently side to side.
We even saw some beer marinated lamb on the hoof....
And a bull (or actually half a bull) cleverly carved out of a stump.
Soon after this, the pictures became few and far between because the climbing started in earnest, and the wind got stronger. Despite the twistiness of the road, it seemed always to be a headwind, even when at one point we rounded a bend and turned right, almost perfectly doubling back on ourselves. STILL a headwind. That's just not fair. Even the downhills became a bit of a chore with so much wind.
Owen was waiting at the top of the first real climb, which was shorter and to a lower elevation then the subsequent one, but much steeper. It was sorely tempting to climb into the van, but how could we forego the descent we had worked so hard to achieve? As we descended, it began to spit rain, and the wind picked up even more. Then it was back up, much more gently but still definitely a workout. And the wind just kept getting stronger. At last, when we thought we just couldn't stand any more, we got to the turn towards St. Arnaud, our destination and the promise of a quick 5 km descent into town.
Strange non-animal sighting of the day was a series of rocks with a curious red covering. It had a slightly velvety feel (but very low pile), so it might have been lichen or something similar.
Total for the day: 101.4 km and 1103 m of climbing. The good news: it's about 60 km and pretty much all downhill tomorrow.
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