Clifden suspension bridge

Day 37. Hmm...giving up on headings...

Lake Monowai to Tuatapere

Daily total: 64.46km Running Total: 2045.60km

It was such a cold night. 2 T-shirts, 2 pairs of socks, trakkie bottoms, gloves and another T-shirt wrapped around my head, all as sleeping gear. The summer sleeping bag is just not cutting it anymore. The final days are going to be hard. The drizzle is making itself known, the prospect of the same short playlist to get me through the day fills me with a hate filled dread. All this topped with preparing myself for the big anticlimax of hitting Bluff. No balloons, no banners, no roaring crowds, not even a pat on the back. It will be just me, the bike and the weather.  A solitary one man party with no one around to share this long awaited moment.

Despite the moments of negativity, NZ stills throws in the oddities that make it all worth while. There's a break in the weather as I stop in a place that is smaller than a hamlet called Clifden and they have a suspension bridge. The longest wooden suspension bridge in NZ none the less. Arriving at the bridge, the words 'No fucking way!', escape my lips (possibly a bit too loudly as the couple at the bridge managed to create the maximum amount of distance between me and them as physically possible), the bridge looking like a mini, wooden, sort of version of the Clifton Suspension bridge in Bristol. It does to me anyway, time may have created a layer of haze on the memories. 

Also, there is a small patch of grass with a toilet and drinking water where you can camp for free. There is not much in the way of entertainment in the area, or shops or much. Just a free place to lay your head for the night.

The weather is in flux the whole day, going freezing rain to hot spells but always with the Southerlies.  Hard to judge the clothing combination, soon as the poncho comes on the sun makes an appearance and bakes me. By the time I cop out with the baking and remove the sweet soaked poncho, the sun taps out and the rain jumps in to resume the assault.  By previous standards,the distance covered on the relatively flat terrain was a short one but the head winds made it feel that I was going uphill the whole day. Just got to keep on ploughing on. The end is nigh.