Up and away by 7:15 from Hanmer Springs with 5 layers and gloves following a clear night and frosty morning . Sunrise was pretty spectacular.

Was a fast ride all the way down the main road till Culverden and my first real coffee of the day .

The route then deviated to include back roads pretty well all the way to Hawarden . Plenty of brevet riders on the route so I played the game “ chase the rabbit “ and was amused at the WTF facial expressions as my outrageously cumbersome rig cruised on past . I briefly joined the main road again up over Weka Pass then sped down down down to my next campsite , ‘ Waipara Sleepers “ a railway themed camp with a bunch of old railway memorabilia , carriages etc.

Was an easy 100 km ride and I was off the bike by 1 pm . The balance of the day was devoted to my bike and a major rear wheel rebuild after a broken spoke and another bunch seriously damaged that needed replacement as they were going to break soon . In all I replaced 6 spokes , thankful that I had spares with me and the heavy tool kit needed to effect the job . I was responsible for the mishap after a bungy cord got caught in the rear cluster doing serious damage .

Was able to give the bike a good clean up as well as the repair and organised to visit a bike shop in Rangiora early the next day to get it checked for tension and trueing professionally.

Was up and away early again with a 40 km ride to Rangiora for my first real coffee and the bike shop . The bike mechanic was pretty expert and gave it a good survey , bending back the rear mech hanger , bending back a brake pad bit that had suffered in the incident and trueing . He was fairly complimentary of my rebuild in the field and sent me away confident that the wheel is OK to continue.

Was a lovely souplesse type of day , effortless spinning as the kms disappeared. Arrived at Glentunnel and settled myself into this pretty nice campsite .. day done .