North from Alexandra over the Lindis Pass (962m above sea level)

Our replacement trailer parts arrived in Cromwell (20 miles west of Alexandra) a few days ago, so we headed over for a night in what was probably the grottiest campsite of the trip so far. In reality it was a chalet camp for out of work dole bludgers and roadbuilders, we just happened to pay 30 dollars to be allowed to camp on a patch of earth between the chalets. Lovely. Town of Cromwell was worth a diversion for a couple of hours though.

From there we cycled the 25 miles north to Tarras, where camping was limited to the field of the local community centre, where there were no amentities. We ended up staying in homestead accomodation run by our host Phil. First B&B I've ever stayed in that came with free booze supplied by the landlord, and in the morning he even haggled us down on the price. It wasn't all great though, decor was a bit 1980's student squat. You can't have everything.

The next day we took on the main challenge of the 50+ miles over the Lindis Pass to Twizel. Spent all morning, and most of the afternoon climbing the 962 metres to the top, and then spent an hour and a half running down the 20 miles to the town of Omarama. Thought we were doing well until we met a girl on a touring bike who had come from Queenstown that morning (about 100 miles away). Checked into the deluxe camp ground and found that 500m down the road there were private open air hot tubs overlooking a private lake with the southern alps as a backdrop, so we pitched the tent and hurried down for a couple of hours of well deserved soaking.

Today, in an effort to recover from yesterdays exertions, we've just headed up the road for 20 miles toward Mt Cook and have had a relaxing afternoon in the town of Twizel, which was originally a temporary town for the construction workers and families on the nearby hydro electric power plant, but when they came to demolish it so many of the residents wanted to stay that the government let them.

Anyhow, I'm off to the supermarket to get some food, tomorrow we continue north to Lake Tekapo.