Cycle Tour ( Day 3) Stuck in Geraldine

Ok. I am not on the bike today. It is raining. Not cats and dogs, but still it is not nice to be outside today. After the fantastic weather yesterday. I am fairly tired and the rain did the rest.

I did a bit of thinking yesterday and this morning. There are two passes I will need to climb to Queenstown. I will be able to do the first one (Burkes Pass) but I am unsure about Lindis Pass. Additional Problems will be, that there are no towns, hotels, no nothing to rest and the road is fairly busy. So there will always be Busses and Transporters overtaking me. It won't be a nice ride.

The route so far was not busy. It is called the inland scenic route. I had bad luck on the first day, because of the low hanging clouds. The second day was better but the route turned out to be boring, because it always went straight. Nevertheless I had fun.

After seeing the rain I decided to stay one more night in Geraldine. Is is a nice small town, with lots of greens. And a good base to go on hiking trips into the surrounding hills. But the weather does not seem to clear up anytime soon. I don't want to spent another night here.

So I worked out several options:

1. Staying another night.
2. Moving on to Fairlie or Lake Tekapo (behind Burkes Pass)
3. Going back to the coast. (Timaru and down the coast on busy Highway 1)
4. Taking the bus to Queenstown. (Skipping Lake Tekapo, Lake Pukaki and Mt. Cook)

Option 1 does not sound that great. Option 2 means going cycling in the rain and possibly not having sleeping accomodations in either town. Option 3 was on my mind a fair while. Because there are other routes to Queenstown. But it will take me maybe five extra days and I need to travel Highway 1.

So I booked the bus. They had a spot left tomorrow for my bike. Now I can look forward to make my Canyon Swing or the Bunjee Jump a little bit earlier.

Today I got news about my german tax payments. I get enough money to extend my stay in the wider world for nearly a month or two depending on where I am going to be. Taxwise it is simply not worth working more than 9 month a year. Have fun and take care. I will be staying in Queenstown for like 5 nights. And won't be doing any long travel cycling, except one or two daytours without much of the luggage.

Have fun and take care out there, while I am doing the safe option too.