Day 9: Cromwell

You just can’t keep people happy. Last night , shortly after I hit rem sleep I was awoken by a text from Dave Lear softly approving my blog of the day but advising that, after all, he takes more pleasure in it when I specifically name and shame his friends in my blog post. I myself do of course take pleasure in literary ritual disembowelling my friends and in fact anybody who comes remotely into my orbit. Pull up a seat, make yourself a cup  of tea and thank Dave. 

Mossburn was cold this morning because it’s summer here. I’m not sure what the temperature was but not enough to lift my fingers above the numb scale. We treated ourselves to a café breakfast and were just about to head off into the wilderness when I noticed some liquid pooling around Bernie’s nether regions. I thought perhaps, that he might be like one of those spaniels that piddles themselves when they are excited but closer inspection revealed it to be coffee that had not yet transited his bladder. He extracted his thermos and briefly my heart soared as I thought he hadn’t screwed the lid on properly which would have allowed me to do a proper hatchet job on him. It turns out that he had screwed the top on but the flask was glass rather than metal which had broken with all the bumps. So he got covered in coffee because he us a cheap bastard, not a forgetful one. He smells quite nice though. 

Off we went on a lovely but pretty cold morning riding the roughly 50km to the Mavora Lakes. It’s deep, rough gravel which is fun to ride as the bike moves around a lot as if you are riding in sand. Then you start wondering if a wheel is falling off. 

The Mavora Lakes are beautiful at any time but particularly lovely in the still morning air. A short entrance road through beech forest which turns into a real fun four wheel drive track further up the valley. It hugs the side of the upper lake and you can flick between a sandy beach track or a rooty beech track. Both are good. Beyond the lakes it hugs the side of the valley before dropping down to Boundary hut in the plains above the lake inlet. A group of 4wd people were at the hut, clearly not aware we had made a reservation so we headed off a little further up the valley where Bernie was able to watch us drink our coffee. 

Then back down the valley again. A delightful trip where I let the 500 off it’s lead for a bit. 

We bumped into a group of old white guys on adventure bikes at the start of the track. There Is nothing sweeter than watching 2 groups of old white guys meet up. Nobody else considers us relevant and so this turns into a rare opportunity to complain to like minded people. One was complaining to Dave Lear that there was too much tourist traffic on Waitangi weekend. Dave, who is a normal person disguised as an owg asked the fellow if perhaps he wasn’t part of the tourist traffic? The conversation moved on. After a bit of figurative sniffing of bums and cocking of legs we moved on in our separate directions. Ours was back to Mossburn for lunch and coffee. Unusually Dave Mac was going 90kph as we approached Mossburn in a light rain. Generally he is a bit more enthusiastic when coffee is on the horizon so it was clear that he was falling asleep. Fortunately it was close and no harm was done. 

Back up the southern arm of Wakatipu and through the Kawerau gorge to Cromwell. It’s still bitterly cold here but we decided to go for a walk after supper, to enjoy the long summer evening. I cramped in my nipple it’s so cold but my mates seemed to think it was pleasant. 

The roads down here are teeming with motorbikes as the Burt Munro rally is on. This is a 4 day festival of bad clothes, bad beards and moustaches (and that’s just the ladies) and generally quite old people gathering in wind and rain around Invercargill to compare thier scout badges. It’s totally not my thing but wherever we go we meet participants who assume it is our thing or even worse, normal humans who think we are part of the thing. One of the North Island gangs, otherwise known as members of parliament, sent a pack of Harley Davidsons down, presumably purchased from the proceeds of thier volunteer work in drug rehab. The convoy crashed into each other around Geraldine so at least some good came of it. 

Fortunately we are moving in the opposite direction and are further into the mountains tomorrow.