Mud in Yer Eye

What an eventful last few days....when Lindsay puts "Big Tough Day" on the route instructions, he means it!  Tuesday we had 128 km with lots of climbing and a long gravel section, but we hadn't planned on all-day rain.  I found it hard to start, with a steady downpour soaking us fairly immediately.  I had even put on my booties but I don't have the neoprene kind so my feet were wet before long.  At lunch, I changed to my better rain jacket, which turned out to be a good choice, then the headwind started to blow.  One of the climbs was close to 20 %, according to Horst's Garmin, and was paved.  I think it was paved because it was so steep the gravel would just keep
falling off!  The top of that big hill had several big wind turbines on it - it was very eerie seeing them fade in and out through the fog (or was that a light mist or just low cloud?).  A couple of the riders were taking the day off but followed our route and I was pretty happy to have a delicious chocolate blast gel handed through the open window to me on one of the last hills.  We were back on pavement when we were glad to see a sign for our destination, Balclutha, in 7 km, then our route took us off on a side road called Sunflower Road - more gravel, more winding but no hills and a very pretty way into the town, because of course by then the rain had really let up.  But there were no sunflowers.  The best part about where we stayed was the Kiwi equivalent of a 7-11, and it was $2 Tuesday, for fries, wedges and all sorts of dubious looking fast food.  You can imagine what our dinner was like, since we were too tired to walk a couple of kilometres into town to eat real food.  I did buy an apple too, so it wasn't completely unhealthy.  Plus, the only possible coffee stop of the day was actually closed, but Kay persuaded them to open to make us tea, and somehow also got them to make a big plate of mousetraps.  A mousetrap is toasted bread, spread with marmite, topped with cheese and broiled until the cheese melts - mmmmm!  I guess I do like marmite.