Finally left Dunedin after a long morning- coffee, further gossip, farewells. Marcin hadn't smoked for three days and when we stopped to provision in the city I begged him to let me buy some nicotine patches, but to no avail.
We didn't really start riding until midday, and consequently when difficulties started it was in the hottest part of the day. At the foot of the first (highly vertical )climb, a puncture, which we repaired in the blazing sun because we were unwilling to lost the 10 m of altitude we'd gained so far. When we replaced the tube and pumped up the new one, it exploded. We had a heated discussion about the cause of the detonation- I say it's defective gauge on the new pump, leading to over-inflation, Marcin says it's the edge of the valve-hole cutting into the valve stem. We gave up the discussion when it became clear nobody was going to back down.
On the second attempt, success, but I rode off very gingerly, expecting another eruption at any minute. We continued climbing, in the heat, with a headwind. 6km/ hour. The roadside sheep ogled us with barely concealed amusement. There was nowhere to shelter and we kept riding without stopping except to consult our map. An unspoken mantra of how far now? hung in the air.
Finally we arrived at Clarkes Junction, went into the pub and ate 2 stacked plates of salt and saturated fat while the publican's daughter, who looked about 8, conscientiously smeared the tables with a damp cloth. After this Marcin miraculously recovered and we set off again on the 'downhill' portion to Middlemarch, which still included a couple of significant uphills. It was getting late and the trickle of cars slowed- we had the whole great grassy desolate expanse to ourselves. We photographed ourselves silly and finally descended to arrive in Middlemarch just on dusk, and took a hut in the campground.
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