Another scorching day in Canterbury, with the temperature reaching 30° today. I drank a lot of water and even stopped to ask some nice people in a campervan if I could have some water.
Of course they said yes, and we spent the next 30 minutes chatting about cycling in California in the 1980s and now in New Zealand.
Onwards, and I met a cyclist coming from Christchurch. We got chatting and it turns out he has prostate cancer which has metastasized, so he is enjoying seeing the world from his bicycle in the year or so he has left.
Wow. He got pretty bitter about the health system but I steered the conversation to what he's enjoying about the trip, so that was better.
Over Burkes Pass and then a nice decent to the plains. The land is far more green and obviously fertile. The Mackenzie Country by contrast is sere and brown, incredibly dry, and not producing much of anything except pretty views and electricity.
The last 8 kilometres into Fairlie was on an unexpected cycleway beside the highway. A very nice surprise. Who built that and why is it not on any map?
I saw 4 dead wallabies. One dead ferret/stoat. Two dead possums, one dead hawk, and a hedgehog. Dead of course.
1 comment:
Sere is a new word to me. Ta!
Post a Comment