The crux of this trip was always going to be the “ unknown “ section of back country roads between Middlemarch and Lawrence . This joins the two cycle trails ( Otago rail trail and the Gold trail ) to make it a longer adventure which was what we needed. We couldn’t find any good info on the road so it was a step into the unknown

Nice day finished at Sutton , 7 km on SH87 Sth of Middlemarch .

Had a very quiet pleasant camp at Lou’s place , a school type camp they allowed us to camp with access to the building for showers etc. Dinner was delivered by this lovely lady and was a huge feast f hot food.

We had a testy 29 km Sth on SH 87 , amazing rocky country but with numerous long steep climbs and forced us to walk over about 5 km. It was hot but we has some breeze on our backs .

The ride into the back roads was also something of a gut buster with some sections so steep that pushing my rig + BOB was strenuous work . Barb found some of the descents tricky too due to narrow tyres and nervousness.

We both very happy to finally reach the lake and some cooling swims to take away the accumulated body heat.

No sooner had we completed setting up camp and putting our fly over Hilly before the heavens opened as a huge thunder storm dropped bulk water over Lawrence . The photo above was taken well after the peak went water complete surrounded hilly

It passed the test , everything inside stayed dry . We also passed the test collectively and have learned heaps about what gear adjustments we may need. Mission accomplished, another 2 days riding will have us back in Alexandra now .