Our first job today was picking up our luggage. We’d posted our checked bags to ourselves using New Zealand’s Poste Restante system, and the best place to pick it up was Murchison. This gave us the opportunity to drop off things we weren’t using, which was quite useful. We then posted our bag to ourselves into the future.

After picking up some cheese from the super market we were off!

Our day started with another saddle. We ate lunch at the top and chatted with a couple cyclists going the other way. The route to the saddle included a few soggy waterway crossings, but nothing major.

We then reached Lake Rotoroa. We had been warned by other cyclists that this was a dangerous place. It was beautiful, but the sandflies were vicious. Within 30 seconds of getting off my bike, I was being attacked. We left in less than 2 minutes, which is such a shame considering how beautiful it is.

We then continued to another saddle!

We stayed in Tapawera at a hippy holiday park with a free roaming goat and old sheep. It was nice enough.