Monday, January 9
Our day started with a hike before breakfast. We hiked down to the beach and the Cathedral Caves. These caves were created by ocean waves in to the rock cliffs along the beach. You can only go into the caves at low tide and our timing was perfect. The caves were remarkable. After breakfast at the hotel we were on our bikes at 10:45 for what was to be a short ride 27 miles. It was short but we had our most difficult climbs since starting this trip and the head winds were tremendous. We averaged 9.4 mph. The ride ended at our picnic lunch. After lunch we walked out to the beach to see a sea lion, what a huge beast.
Back on the bus for the last 12 miles to Kaka Point. Dinner was at 6:30 and then be took the bus to Nugget lighthouse. We got to see lots of fur seals and we did spot two yellow eye penguins. These penguins are the rarest of all penguins and are only found on the southern half of the South Island of New Zealand.
Tuesday, January 10
Kaka Point to Dunedin
Todays ride was done in two segments for 39.3 miles. We left the hotel at 8:30 for a 12.7 mile ride to Balclutha for a morning coffee stop. This ride was much different then yesterday, no hills and no head winds and we averaged 17.5 mph. We rode along the coast most of the way and there were still sheep farms. The road from Barclutha to Milton had some very steep hills, long down hills and gravel most of the way. The safe way to do it was to load the bikes on the trailer and ride the bus to Milton. Our bikes were a dusty mess from the gravel roads. Craig and Das, our tour guides, as usual are very resourceful and found a place for us to wash off the bicycles. From Milton we bike the 26.6 miles to Dunedin. We encountered the most difficult hill of the trip and a wild winding down hill into Duneden.
Several teams had to walk the hill but we grunted to the top. Dunedin is a pretty large city and we have a day off here. We don't have any plans yet for our day off but Cindy says it will not include bicycling.
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