meander

this was meant to be only about 40km to the national park that dominates the western end of the island. but today we were feeling very flat, my heartrate barely got over 110bpm heading up the first climb (usually would be upwards of 150bpm) and we just crawled the whole way.

once we got to the national park we found the campsite was almost empty and had really great amenities (which we essentially had to ourselves). we'd booked in for three nights and everyone was happy that we were staying put for a little while.

on our first "rest" day we rode down to the coast (without the panniers) to see some of the local sights near cape couedic. while the road was asphalt, there were quite a few rolling hills and we were still feeling tired.

we went first to remarkable rocks and then backtracked to the cape couedic lighthouse.

we walked a couple of km across to weir cove where supplies for the lighthouse were winched ashore before the road was opened in 1940. it was lovely to get away from the tourists who all seemed scared of getting out of sight of their 4WDs and tour buses. after walking down and seeing the new zealand fur seals we decided to try to make it back to camp for an icecream before the shop shut. we knuckled down and made it back easily at an average of over 20km/h (a record for us).

the next day we did actually rest (well mostly, kai refused to sleep in the tent and dyon took for a 90 minute ride so we could all relax).