A brightly colored shape appeared unexpectedly in the middle of the road ahead. Closing in I realized it was a multicolored cyclists jacket and vest which I was sure was Anjas. I put them in my pack and continued on. Eventually the Poolburn lake appeared out of the gloom and as I rode around the lake edge I saw someone fishing in the distance - the first human being I had seen in hours. I rode on with only the odd bedraggled sheep as company. It was a bizarre looking landscape made all the more so with the low cloud all round.
I had been steadily climbing for a while and finally the road started heading predominantly down. I dipped below the cloud to be greeted by a breathtaking sight of a large cultivated plain far below the edge of the rocky, spiky monolithic range I had been traversing. It all had an air of fantastic unreality helped by the fact that I had been totally alone all morning.
I pedaled on - gravel roads, undulations and now the odd vehicle passing by became my world. I missed the next turnoff but quickly realized I was no longer on the GPS blue line. I backtracked and discovered that we were supposed to turn off the main road and head up the Dunstan trail that I could see steeply climbing into the far high distance into the Rock and Pillar range.
Another long walk up followed - at least I was used to it by now. An hour or so up I turned round to take in the stunning view. Way, way down at the bottom of the climb I could just make out some moving figures heading up - I assumed it must have been Barryn and co.
The Dunstan Trail undulated along the top of the Rock and Pillar range for a long time. Eventually I reached the Great Moss Swamp which was really a large lake. With cloud shrouding the far edge it looked like an endless inland sea - totally unexpected up here in this barren high mountain range. I had not stopped at all since 5.30am and decided a break was in order and I had a late lunch of OSM bars and a well squashed banana at the lake edge. Just as I was about to set off Paul, Mark, Barryn and Trevor turned up - company at last! They decided to stop as well while I was itching to go.
Not much further on I stopped to chat to two foreign cyclists unexpectedly pedaling along in this desolate place. They were on old cheap rigid Healing bikes with monstrously huge backpacks. They seemed happy and told me in broken English that they were heading to a village that they couldn't pronounce. I tried to tell them there were no 'villages' anywhere near but they just smiled. I wished them well and headed off on the very long downhill back towards civilization.
It seemed to take ages to descend all the way to the main road. I finally got there and turned onto the tarseal and headed towards Middlemarch. The four others caught me and we got into group time trial mode as someone thought the shop closed at 5.00pm and it was touch and go that we would make it in time. Our peloton started splitting up with everyone pedaling as fast as they could. I dropped off the back first followed by the others one by one until Barryn was left powering off the front alone. He pulled up to the shop bang on 5.00pm, jumped off wallet in hand to find out it actually closed at 10.00pm - oh well.
At the local cafe Dave King was waiting for us - I gave him Anjas jacket to pass on. The cafe owner knew all about the GSB. We collapsed into red bean bags, stuffed our faces, talked rubbish while the cafe owner oggled our bikes and checked the blue dot progress on the cafe computer for future customers. It was hard to escape the soft embrace of the red bean bags but it was too early to stop for the night.
As usual I was first on my bike and headed off on the rail trail towards Ranfurly 60 kilometers away. This section of the trail had some long rather boring sections that stretched off in dead straight lines to the horizon. Hours of riding went by. The other four had long since passed me as I watched the sun go down. It was totally dark by the time I pulled into Ranfurly. The town looked closed but the Hotel still had someone behind the counter luckily. They had no space but rung the backpackers next door who kindly opened the place just for me. I got to sleep around 11.00pm - 16 hours of riding - it had been a big but another totally amazing day on the bike.
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