Start – Twizel
Finish – Twizel
Daily Distance – 0 km
TA Distance – 2477 km
Bluff Distance – 564 km
Well, I survived typhoon Gita with no greater inconvenience than a dramatic increase in my boredom
levels. I am fortunate to be in an area where the weather has been no worse than for a typical English
BBQ. Both coasts sound like they have been hit pretty hard, but through some meteorological quirk all
that has reached this area is a band of heavy rain.
After cooking myself a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs and smoked salmon (town treat!) I decided
to brave the rain and explore Twizel. Despite, in the finest American style, being hugely spread out, a
fairly thorough exploration didn’t take long. Unless you have a desire to eat, drink, sleep, or hire a
bicycle, Twizel probably isn’t the town for you. Still, with blogging to catch up on I had a choice of no
fewer than 4 cafés to visit. It has been a busy, and heavily caffeinated, day.
Having spent too much money on coffee and being consequently incapable of sitting still, I retired to the
campsite. I’m not really sure why I chose to do this as it’s a pretty cheerless place to spend time. Not
having a lounge area, the kitchen has become crammed full of bored, dripping, refugee campers, looking
for somewhere dry. Imagine the pitious scenes from a post-flood Oxfam appeal, just with an unusually
high concentration of North Face apparel and you have the scene. Anyway, with the humidity level sitting
somewhere between rainforest and devils armpit, I escaped to my tent.
There have been few times on this trip that I have missed my 2 person tent, but today was one of them.
Spending hours trying vainly to amuse myself in a tent little larger than I am is tough. It has given me a
chance to start a new book though. In the latest of my inspirational “epic journeys” series, I have begun
reading “As I walked out one Midsummer Morning”, by Laurie Lee. I haven’t read far though as the rain
drumming on my tent is lulling me to sleep. 19:30 is an acceptable, adult bedtime isn’t it?
