Date: Sunday 24 February 2013
Route: Methven to Geraldine
Distance: 70km to Geraldine – and another 14km around town
Weather: sunny and clear
Accommodation: Geraldine Holiday Park cabin – excellent location and value.

We had huge rooms and wooden floors in our accommodation on top of the pub. However, I wouldn’t recommend sleeping at the top of the pub on Saturday night. After falling into an exhausted sleep at about 9pm, we woke just before midnight to the sounds of loud music and partying downstairs. The advantage of being this tired is we that we quickly fell asleep again. A while later, the music had died down but I heard a huge fight going on in the street outside with men and woman shouting at each other. Kris didn’t even hear this bit. Who would have thought Methven was such a party town at night?

Today’s 70km was extremely easy – just about all flat – we left at around 8.40am and arrived at 12 noon. We are travelling through the Canterbury Plains – good farming country with some large dairy herds and also sheep and some cropping. Where the land is not irrigated it is very dry.

It was great to ride in the sun, the air had a crispness to it, so we never got too hot. In the clear conditions we could enjoy the view of the mountains in the distance.

Geraldine is a lovely little town that was buzzing with Sunday afternoon markets when we got here. There are many small shops selling tourist stuff, wool products and delicatessen foods. We saw the largest knitted jersey in the world, hanging in a jersey shop (together with certificate from Guinness Book of Records). Also bought some special pepper Gouda and some Barkers jam from the Barkers shop (the factory is here).

After shopping and cleaning up we rode around town a bit and found Esther just arriving in town. We shared a few beers and some conversation – maybe she will drop in on us in Wellington.

We also had a discussion with an Australian couple from Sydney while making supper in the camp kitchen. They are in a hired motor home but went travelling all over Australia for a year with a caravan after they retired