Sunday 9th March - From Te Anau to Twizel by car

We start our quest in earnest now to get our bikes and us back to Auckland airport and home. We will go through Cromwell today so we will go through some of the route we have previously cycled. We have ended up on South Island doing a sort of figure of eight with Cromwell as the centre. We are now heading North East so we can see Mount Cook. we had a 250 mile journey today, as we decided not to stop at Cromwell as originally planned as we had already spent three days there because of the pop festival on 15 th Feb.

The day started cold and with thick cloud. All of a sudden the cloud lifted and out came the sun. Temperatures of 22 degrees centigrade today so it was summer again. We were soon out of Southlands and into the yellow Central Otego again. It was a fantastic drive and we stopped by the lakeside neat Frankton and made a brew with the trangia. We went passed Jacks point where Catherine did her sky dive thus completing the "bottom of the eight" bit of our tour. We did some present buying at the gold mine centre just outside Cromwell. We do not have to worry about weight now that we are not cycling which is proving bad news on our bank balance!

Staying in a motel for two nights now and looking at Mount Cook in the distance. The weather is forecast to remain good and it is getting back to warmer weather now, as we travel North.