From Lawrence Motor Camp through to Alexandra Holiday Park, a distance of about 100 kms or about 63 miles. After leaving the campsite, we briefly explored Lawrence which is mainly notable for its gold mining past. In 1861 (yes, this year is the 150th anniversary) Gabriel Reade discovered gold in the little valley now called Gabriel's Gully. There was a short lived flurry of mining - 12000 rushed here at the peak. Agriculture is now the mainstay and the gold mining ceased a long time ago. Then we cycled along to the Clutha Valley (again) and on to Raes Junction. Then on over a mix of hilliness and flat valley roads to Roxburgh, the scenery being by then a delightful wide valley full of fruit trees. A visit to Jimmy's Pie Shop followed. Jimmy's Pies are a kiwi institution. Being mostly meat based they have not featured in our tour much. They do a fruit pie but that is rarely seen. We ate cakes and little savoury thingies. Not bad but why don't they indulge their visitors in a proper cafe - sitting outside in the rain was a bit wearing. The photo is the rather characterful metal statue of Jimmy - with cat. After Roxburgh the road got substantially hillier and then my back wheel kept puncturing - the tyre was falling a part at the seam and the inner tube was poking out. Very problematic. After a while I had swapped the front and back tyres so the front tyre was the failing one - and the front tyre can run at a lower pressure because I only have back panniers (the high pressure was what was forcing the inner tube out through the growing crack). I had to remove a brake at the front so the bulging tyre did not catch on it. I tightened the rear brakes and double checked them to compensate. This took ages so we limped, carefully, into Alexandra at about 8.30pm and found a campsite, ate a little and rapidly fell asleep. The landscape between Roxburgh and Alexandra is unusual - eroded rocks sit (tors - as on Dartmoor) on rolling rocky hills. Apparently they are eroded remnants of schizt - created when all this landscape was at the bottom of the sea. See the picture. Evidently tomorrow will have to be a mending things day - and a washing day because I ended today very dirty from changing wheels and mending punctures. Plus a late nose bleed added the finishing touch. Ah, the cyclist as traveller as tramp.
From Lawrence Motor Camp through to Alexandra Holiday Park, a distance of about 100 kms or about 63 miles. After leaving the campsite, we briefly explored Lawrence which is mainly notable for its gold mining past. In 1861 (yes, this year is the 150th anniversary) Gabriel Reade discovered gold in the little valley now called Gabriel's Gully. There was a short lived flurry of mining - 12000 rushed here at the peak. Agriculture is now the mainstay and the gold mining ceased a long time ago. Then we cycled along to the Clutha Valley (again) and on to Raes Junction. Then on over a mix of hilliness and flat valley roads to Roxburgh, the scenery being by then a delightful wide valley full of fruit trees. A visit to Jimmy's Pie Shop followed. Jimmy's Pies are a kiwi institution. Being mostly meat based they have not featured in our tour much. They do a fruit pie but that is rarely seen. We ate cakes and little savoury thingies. Not bad but why don't they indulge their visitors in a proper cafe - sitting outside in the rain was a bit wearing. The photo is the rather characterful metal statue of Jimmy - with cat. After Roxburgh the road got substantially hillier and then my back wheel kept puncturing - the tyre was falling a part at the seam and the inner tube was poking out. Very problematic. After a while I had swapped the front and back tyres so the front tyre was the failing one - and the front tyre can run at a lower pressure because I only have back panniers (the high pressure was what was forcing the inner tube out through the growing crack). I had to remove a brake at the front so the bulging tyre did not catch on it. I tightened the rear brakes and double checked them to compensate. This took ages so we limped, carefully, into Alexandra at about 8.30pm and found a campsite, ate a little and rapidly fell asleep. The landscape between Roxburgh and Alexandra is unusual - eroded rocks sit (tors - as on Dartmoor) on rolling rocky hills. Apparently they are eroded remnants of schizt - created when all this landscape was at the bottom of the sea. See the picture. Evidently tomorrow will have to be a mending things day - and a washing day because I ended today very dirty from changing wheels and mending punctures. Plus a late nose bleed added the finishing touch. Ah, the cyclist as traveller as tramp.