I woke up before Rowan and Joanne. Pete & Bev we’re already awake. I had a cuppa while they had breakfast before church. They asked if I would like to join, but I don’t think I can be converted. So I spend the morning walking around the estate. It is quite large, I am interested to know how many kilometres I walked today. I found a lot of the places Pete was talking about last night. An old lake used to be here and the occupants from the late 1800s had small wooden boats they would take out on it.

I must have walked around for a good hour or more and when I returned it was about 10am and the others were finally getting up. When they got back from church Pete took us for another wee tour of the estate and I retraced my steps from earlier. We did walk further down the cycle trail than I went. All the way to an old bridge that Pete fought to keep when they did the trail. He won and they put the new bridge on top preserving the original one underneath. We then carried on to the stables and the men’s quarters which he is renovating. He wants to make accommodation for cyclists and such. He wants to find someone to manage the farm and the accommodation in return they get free rent upstairs which is a three bedroom place. I think he may need to pay them as well as you would need to be fairly skilled, but hopefully he finds the person he is looking for.

Bev makes almost everything from scratch, she is a great cook and I enjoyed her meals. They only buy in what they can’t realistically grow, things like grain and milk. But she does mill her own grain to make her own flour to bake her own bread. She pickles and preserves. It makes me want to live the homestead life!

Pete kindly drops us off to the car hire place. We don’t cycle the last day, which looked to be rather boring to be honest. Plus you know us, we don’t have to do everything recommended. We take our car back to the accomodation in Kakanui. We leave our bikes at Elderslie, but I forgot the rear wheel. We must pick it up in the morning so I can return it to the lovely Amy at Ōmarama.

A fantastic celebratory dinner at Del Mar. This is a restaurant we have wanted to come to for a while. Run by a local couple and she is from Argentina. The flavours are done incredibly well and the make their own gelato which is incredible too. Definitely a pricey meal but a must if you are a foodie!