Today was my third day off the bike of the trip. I didn't really want to take one here but after how late I got in and how my legs felt I needed it. Outside of the expensive stuff I did the rest of the recommendations from the cyclists a couple nights back. I got coffee at Patagonias (mostly to use their free wifi), a burger at Fergburger and happy hour beer at 1876 pub. Outside of that I spent the rest of my day wandering around town, finally tracking down a patch kit to fix a tiny hole in my tents mesh, reading and tourist watching. Restlessness, as usual for days off, really started setting in after about 6pm. I need to try to put a couple short days back to back to try to avoid needing rest days in the future. They're great, but at some point I get uncomfortable having not actually gone anywhere.

Back to food. Now I have has some complaints about the food here, mostly things that I loved at home aren't as good and (other than meat pies) I haven't found any replacements. Burgers, however, are something they really get right here. Always enormous and always so perfect after a day on the bike. Now I know this is something people say about a lot of places, but I can definitely say that Fergburger today served me the best burger I've ever had.

I also spent some time today actually attempting to form a plan for the rest of my time here (gasp). I've spent enough time talking to cyclists and reading the South Island Peddlers' Paradise book that I have a pretty solid idea on the remainder of my time down here will be like. Given that, I could make a rough guess on how much time I'd have on the North Island as well. Looks like I can make a mad dash across the boring southern part, ride the eastern cape then see (quickly) the tropical top of the island before getting back to Auckland at the end of January.