The day began with no rain! What a change. We headed off from our sanctuary and jumped straight onto the wilderness trail. We followed along for a few kilometres and Rowan lost a pedal. He didn’t lose it as such, but we couldn’t get it to stay on. He tries to bike with it not attached and he said it it doable but not great. When we find a good spot to stop, we call the bike shop in Hokitika and make sure they are open and they can replace it. Now that we know they can, we make a quick decision to change our route. Plans had changed, and we wanted to do the full wilderness trail, but it would be impossible with a broken pedal. We don’t want to turn back. When we reach Kumara Junction, we hop on the road and stop following the trail. The new aim is to get to Hokitika.

The downhill near Serpentine Beach is really fun. It feels so close to Hokitika, but that is the problem when you are used to driving it. When we reach the Arahua River, it is time for a break. Rowan can’t help but fossick even though he can’t take any rocks out of the river. I sit and read my book. I end up with some good company

Not far to go now. We head straight to the bike shop. He repairs the pedals and also does the main pedal bearing. We leave our bikes with him and pick up Rowan’s pills. Luckily they were ready. Then we just mooched around, looked at the galleries and had a real fruit yoghurt cone. We picked up the bikes and some butt cream to stop the chub rub. A quick shop at the supermarket before heading out of town to Links Campground. We follow the wilderness trail again and end up having to backtrack 1km to the campground. My maps said 43km done today, but I think it is a bit more.