Day 25 - West Coast Escape 5 - Franz Josef to Hokitika

[arcadiagt5]

Lakes, hills, and more glorious weather.

We started from the motel and headed down the main road to Lake Mapourika and Lake Wahapo. One option for today was a ride to Okarito Lagoon but it involved gravel and was thus met with near universal scorn. :)

We stopped briefly at Whataroa for morning tea and I elected to ride through to Hari Hari for lunch. Those who have been paying attention will realise that this meant I was taking on Mount Hercules again. It wasn't too bad actually although fairly steep at the end of the climb. The descent was worth the effort (as usual). After that there were about 5Km of flat riding so I made it to Hari Hari in reasonable time.

I rode on from lunch but found that fatigue was setting in fast - even the little hills started hurting a lot and the climb away from Lake Ianthe was about all I could take. The next time I saw Rosco I told hime that I would call it a day at Bushman's Rest about 25Km on from lunch. Incidentally Bushman's Rest is the site of the Pukekura Pub where I obtained such a tasteful photo last time I was here. :)

I spent some time after dinner copying some photos to Kara's memory card, especially the glacier shots I took for her when her camera died. Some good shots in there once I get round to processing them on the laptop. My camera has a tinted backplate and I'm generally wearing sunglasses so I often don't know what I have until I bring them up on the laptop. :)

And here are the stats:

Day	Max	Average	Distance	Time	BJ Rank	Against
25	58.9	18.2	85.27	4:41:16	626	5002
		Totals	1213.61	66:15:02

Last day tomorrow and it looks like the weather may abandon us.