I got on the road before 9am and realized that today was my 8th day in a row in the saddle. For the last two days on the rather flat rail trail my legs have felt great. It was obvious my body is getting used to so much time pedaling. Today I knocked that good feeling right out of them.

About 30km from camp was the city of Cromwell. Reasonably sized but nothing too interesting. About 10km away from camp the wind really picked and I was pushing into a good headwind. I probably should have called it a day at Cromwell. Unfortunately for my legs I got there by shortly after 11am and decided I had to stick to my goal of 90km total, finishing in Queenstown. Hey, the wind will probably stop soon, right? Ugh. I pushed into the wind for at least 50km of my day. Originally when I had days like this they really got to me, it's pretty discouraging after all to be down in the granny chainring just to keep moving on flat ground. At this point I'm pretty used to it. It makes it a long, exhausting day but the scenery was beautiful so as soon as I gave up any hope of getting to Queenstown early or having working legs I just sucked it up and enjoyed the view. Sadly no good pictures of this as the road was narrow and had little to no safe places to stop when the moment was right for a picture.

In the end I made it to Queenstown quite late, finishing camp setup and a shower by about 8pm. Queenstown is a huge, huge tourist destination. It's full of everything you can imagine doing. Rafting, kayaking, heli-biking (they fly you in a helicopter to where you start your downhill mountain bike trip), bungee jumping, etc. Everything is close to or well over $200nzd so I don't really know that I'll join in on any of the fun.

The town center is jam packed with tourists which gives it quite the different feel than a lot of the places I stay. The South Island is in large part very sparsely populated. At least once every few days I stay somewhere that has little more than a pub and a dairy so this is a little different.

Per Nathan and Justin's advice, I wound up pitching my tent behind a hostel. Super cheap (compared to the motorcamps here that are swarmed with camp vans) and I get to use nice hostel facilities. A lot noisier than usual, though.

Most of my comments on the gear I brought was being saved for a post of its own later on but I wanted to comment that bringing an iPad on tour was a pretty sweet idea. The new smaller one would have been even better, but this one is working great. Last night when discussing routes I was able to pull up the places tab in photos and even with no Internet, maps were cached well enough to be able to show my route with pinpoint pictures of why I thought a couple detours I took were completely worth it. I guess this could have been done with an iPhone or an iPod Touch too, but I've also liked having the size when dealing with photos and blogging.

Today I finished out the rail trail making it to Clyde (70km). Was quite happy to be done with it. The trail as a whole is a pretty amazing ride covering a lot of very beautiful scenery without having to deal with the typical harshness of New Zealand hills. The downside is that at times it is very rough for loaded tourers. Areas of thick gravel that my bike just sinks into or of very large stones that jam my bike back and forth and deal harsh blows through my saddle. Back to the smooth road full of big metal boxes for now!

I didn't mention this yesterday but warm weather finally seems to be here. Two days in a row of seeing over 80 Fahrenheit on my Garmin. This means short sleeves and finally my forearms can start to catch the tan of my knees and hands.

Everyone knows there are a lot of sheep in New Zealand but its hard to grasp how huge their presence is until you're here. It might be hard to see in this picture but all the white dots are sheep.

Tonight at camp I saw a couple guys roll in with panniers and, as usual, I got excited and ran to chat. Justin and Nathan, a younger guys from Australia doing a shorter tour with some similar routes as me, only reversed. Heading off the other direction on the rail trail then up the coast to likely end at Oamaru. We talked for a while and traded tips about towns to skip and notes on the peddlers paradise routes. Got a lot of good ideas from them for eating cheaply at camp.

They were running on mountain bikes with no front panniers and a massive pile strapped down on the rear rack and backpacks. Said its what they got when talking to someone in a bike shop back in Australia about gear for the trip. Glad I got steered in the right direction at Baer Wheels, thanks Steve!

Today I set off for the first leg of the Otago rail trail, a 150ish kilometer long trail across central Otago. Not knowing how the terrain would be and having been discouraged from taking a lot of weight by the Pedallers' books I left with almost no food in my bags. Turned out to not be a problem so I restocked about half way when I got the chance. A fully loaded bike with tires mostly meant for the road can be a bit rough when the gravel gets thick but it wasn't too bad.

When the day started I was feeling kind of lonely. I haven't ran into any cyclists lately which isn't too surprising, it's still rather early for us. The problem was that I had expected the rail trail to be full of them but town last night was empty and I put about 10km in this morning seeing nobody on the trial (except sheep). I eventually started seeing bikes but for a while it was just smiling at people on rental mountain bikes. Then I started seeing people with panniers and flagged someone down to chat, thinking they were touring. Nope, just rented the bike one way and put their clothes in the already attached rear panniers. Lots of those, actually.

Finally about 55km in I saw my first fully loaded touring bike since Jim and Tonya. Stopped and talked for a while. He was from Wellington and every year takes his entire month of leave to bicycle tour New Zealand.

Got to my expected destination (65km) and had my usual burger and beer. Somehow felt regenerated and since it was only 3:30pm and I couldn't find internet there I decided to take the 28km to the next town before calling it quits. When I got there the lady who runs the camp grounds was out so I headed to the pub to make use of their wifi while I waited. Got flagged by a couple doing the trail as well and talked for a while. He runs a software company on the north island and for the first time in three weeks I talked to someone here about computers!

Today I feel like I cheated. For the first time in almost three weeks I was propelled by something other than my legs. I woke up and road in early Dunedin rush hour traffic (ugh) to get to the rail station. The plan was to avoid the hellish way out (via “three mile hill” and other serious ups and downs) by taking the Taieri Gorge rail then a 20km mostly dirt road into Middlemarch. Well despite arriving an hour early, I was told the train was completely booked, but was put on a waiting list. Sat in or near the train station impatiently awaiting to find out if I had to murder my legs getting out of town or not. Last minute they called me in and gave me a ticket. Being on the train felt like I was getting away with something. Here I was, seeing beautiful scenery and doing no work!

My one way ticket dropped my bike and I off at Pukerangi. The guide told us the town had recently doubled in size when a second farm house was built. Glad to be away from the city and back to quiet rides. From here it was weaving around on dirt roads for about 10km then, would you believe it, I road with a monster tail wind after I turned off the dirt road to head north. After making great time I reached Middlemarch, the trail head for the Otago rail trail that I'll be on for the next two days.

Stopped at my fist bike shop of the trip here. Waiting until I was out of the city to do this was probably a mistake. My chain has been accumulating some muck that I haven't been able to get off but they didn't really know how to help me with this. Had no degreaser but offered me a bucket of hot soapy water and insisted I switch to wax based lube at what seemed quite the price for a bottle. Well the bucket of water and a spare toothbrush did well enough after cleaning my chain at least. Also couldn't help me with any of the stuff I needed to pick up (shoe covers and new gloves). They did want me to buy new tires, claiming mine aren't suited for dirt and gravel like the rail trail. Yeah, okay.

Today when I stopped on the dirt roads to eat some lunch I discovered that my hot sauce bottle lid had rattled off at some point since I got off the train. Perhaps I should keep stuff like that in a zip lock bag. It was in the top pouch of my rear panniers which didn't let any drip into my clothes but it did dissolve a handful of ibuprofen pills into a big nasty mess in the pouch. While cleaning it I found out that those panniers (Arkel t-48) are pretty dang water proof. Filled the pouch with water from a spout and it only lightly beaded around the seams.

Today the goal was to see more of the peninsula then head back to Dunedin and maybe start on my way to the Otago rail trail.

First I road down towards the pyramids (they aren't really pyramids…) to hike to a beach hoping to spot some sea lions or penguins. After taking a pretty crazy dirt road for a while I had to hike 45 minutes to get to the beach. Completely alone there I walked up and down the coast, spotting a seal and a penguin.

After that back I was to the dirt roads. Got lost and had to ask for directions at some point but was fun seeing how my bike does off the beaten path, even when carrying a full load.

My life advice for you today is this: if your legs feel like pudding when you wake up, do not cycle on roads named anything similar to “Highcliff road”, especially if you have reason to believe it has earned the name. I spent the better part of my morning pedaling, swearing and a couple times walking my bike up 10-20% grade hills as I took the hard route in. Boy was it worth it as I was rewarded with spectacular views the entire way.

A while later it was finally time to make the descent into the main town of the peninsula and the road had this sign. I think that was the biggest smile I made the whole day.

Today I had a very hilly ride, almost 1km total ascent. The path along the coast in the morning was full of shorter 5-20% grade hills and then Mount Cargill had to be passed to get into Dunedin. The later being 9km spent going uphill, climbing a total of 400m. To top it off wind was gusting occasionally so I took a handful of rest stops to read by shelter of a tree while I waited for it to calm down.

After a long and painful morning I made it to Dunedin. Even though I'm more comfortable touring than I was in Christchurch, I still don't really know what to do in big cities. With so many people I don't want to leave my bike unlocked anywhere and I don't feel comfortable leaving my panniers sit on my bike while I'm in a shop or eating. Because of that I spent a little while riding around town then headed towards camp and got dinner at a pub further from the main part of town where I could feel safe about my stuff. Dunedin is also home of the worlds steepest road.

I've been surprised at how friendly and helpful people are to me due to my bike making my goals pretty obvious. During a morning stop to avoid the rain that had started, I was at a cafe getting a lovely long black. The owner came out to talk to me about my trip and if I needed anything. Filled my bottles with water and some carb drink mix and offered (repeatedly) to let me use their shower. Made me question if he asked for a reason but I was at a motor camp the night before so had actually been properly cleaned at this point. Later, shortly after I had rolled into Dunedin, I was standing around looking lost in front of the information center trying to figure out what to do with my bike so I could go in and ask where to head for camping. A cyclist going the other way turned around and asked if I needed help and gave me directions to the one most convenient for the direction I'd be leaving in the morning.

Today I started the trek towards Dunedin, the second biggest city on the South Island. It's only about 120km from Oamaru so I should get there tomorrow. I made it about 75km to a small town called Waikouaiti today.

Weather of course wasn't so pleasant. Started my ride today nice and sunny but after about an hour the rain came and went for the rest of the day. For the most part it was pretty light, just cold, and I'll take some rain over heavy winds just about any day.

I weaved on and off state highway 1 to take back roads that run along the coast. Even with cloudy skies and drizzling rain the ride was great but I had too few chances to take pictures without risking my camera.

From my tent tonight I can hear the ocean which is quite the welcomed change from the sheep I've heard for the last few nights.

And what day of bicycle touring would be complete without some alcohol? Had a tasting of New Zealand whiskey, definitely picking some of this up from the duty free going home.

And what day of bicycle touring would be complete without some alcohol? Had a tasting of New Zealand whiskey, definitely picking some of this up from the duty free going home.