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8th Jan 2011 - Making Haste to Haast

Knights PointFrom Pine Lodge Motel and Camping through to Haast Lodge (and camping) - about 90 kms which is a shade under 60 miles, say 56.The day started slowly since neither of us emerged from sleep until a bit after 8am.... We breakfasted and I got a bit obsessed with getting another percent of Tristram Shandy read (ebooks don't have neat page numbers since you can alter the font size so it becomes a matter of percents...). Eventually got on the road at abut 10.30am. There's a lovely rolling undulating road going south through heavily wooded bush. After about 30 or so kms we reached a salmon farm that does food and so we had smoked salmon rolls for lunch. Not very vegetarian but not much really to eat otherwise, and I am partial to smoked salmon, though preferably organic RSPCA monitored and so on (to salve my veggie conscience). An american couple chatted to us as we were leaving, doing NZ by car but curious to see some of the world by bike. The girl, Anita, was impressed by the distance we'd covered, and the man in her life was impressed by the heavy weight of the bike, which he accurately guessed to be over 50lbs. We encouraged them to look at http://www.adventurecycling.org - a superb site for cycling in the USA.There were fish in ponds there but curiously they were, apparently, trout....We passed lots of hives, some being smoked by a crowd of bee keepers. We cycled through some fairly cross looking swarms of bees - fast. I think they were a still a bit drowsy from smoke. Then on past a couple of lakes to the coast at Knight's Point - a great viewpoint over the Tasman Sea, and the biggest climb of the day. Then a very quick dip in Ship Creek (recommended by a friendly cyclist from Dunedin) - made briefer by the sheer numbers of sand flies. Then on to Haast, the road flattening out until we crossed the Haast River (via the longest bridge on the west coast - mostly concrete single track) and shopped and pitched camp.Today has been gorgeous weather, with Steve and Carol a litttle ahead of us (perhaps an hour ahead). We all met up in the evening over food and bottles of beer. There's a curious map that Guy spotted on a wall - an old antique map with the names Ulster Island (North Island), Munster or Middle Island (South Island), and Leinster or South Island (Stewart Island). Ah, it'll please anyone of Irish extraction no doubt, and shows a fanciful, to modern eyes, way of seeing NZ.Tristram Shandy contains a passage on travel, that I've just read - 'So much motion, continues he [Bp Hall] (for he was very corpulent) - is so much unquietness; and so much of rest, by the same analogy, is so much of heaven.... Now I (being very thin) think differently; and that so much of motion, is so much of life, and so much of joy - and that to stand still, or get on but slowly, is death and the devil-'Truth lies, I suppose on both sides of this!

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