Jan 11th

A day of rolling countryside ie it was hilly.Left at 7.30am ,stopped at 10am for a bacon sanny where we met an organiser of mountain bike trips who did not think we were overloaded which was music to Linda's ears and supported her case that a hairdryer is not a luxury! Shortly after on the road we met Henrick, a young Dane, who was half-way into a 4 year around the world cycle trip; rather put our modest effort into perspective. He was heading for Auckland and from there off to Patagonia and the start of his 18month ride to Alaska.He also did not think we were overloaded. He had met a couple in East Timor riding a tandem who were so overloaded that their back wheel had collapsed 6 times. Cycled through Otorohanga[called Oto by the locals] which they described as the kiwi capital of New Zealand.At each entrance to the town is a very large Kiwi, large enough for Linda to stand underneath one of them! There was also a brick-framed caravan encapsulating the artists time in a caravan when prospecting for minerals in the 1960s. An Arts committee had decided in their wisdom that this was a fine piece of modern art to grace the entry to Oto - quite what the locals thought is another matter! Oto is very much a Maori town with some impressive hand-carved figures on 2 'totem-like poles'. This is cow country and we spotted a line of at least a hundred cows crossing the side of a hill to be milked - walking with military precision. The possum count was high today - not something to distress the average NZ as the possum is a pest brought in from Australia and has been destroying trees ever since. Finally arrived in Te Kuiti - the shearing capital of the world; it has a giant stone statue[ probably 10 times life size of a shearer shearing a sheep!]. Our hotel aptly called the Panorama was half-way up the most horrendous hill we had encountered so far in NZ. I left Linda in a heap outside reception while I booked us in; the very young receptionist expressed astonishment at what we were up to and said' I am so proud of you!'Accomodation as usual was excellent and even had a spa bath - height of luxury. On our End to End trip in UK we had mixed fortunes when it came to our bed and breakfasts - in one as I recall my knees were hard against the loo door; it was difficult to turn round in there as well.However the quality on NZ television is seriously bad. We read in a national paper today a report from a OZ TV critic who was complaining about the quality and as he said he should know as most of the content comes from OZ!