We fell asleep easily last night, but when I woke up needing to go to the toilet about 2.30am, I found it impossible to get back to sleep once I'd climbed back into my sleeping bag. I blame the excitement of being back on the road again - even if it is just for three days. At least in a campground you have the luxury of a TV room, so I went across to that so as not to disturb Pete with all my tossing and turning.
Pete woke up about 6.30am and we had to wake Gary at 8am as we were getting hungry. We had already packed up the tent and reattached our numerous little bags to the bikes and were ready to go. So once Gary had packed up his solitary backpack, we cycled up to Opunake township for breakfast. Found a great little cafe where we enjoyed a delicious breakfast and coffee and then headed south on the main road, looking for the turnoff to Stratford.
We'd just crossed the bridge out of town when Gary suddenly remembered he'd left his one bag at the cafe. One bag Gary, one bag! So Pete and I waited while he cycled back to the cafe where the locals gave him a round of applause as he pedalled up to retrieve it.
We turned off on the main road to Stratford which wasn't too busy and after about 15 minutes turned off onto an even quieter road which also was a lot more direct to Stratford.
The weather was threatening rain and we could see it approaching so rode quickly in the hope we might outride it. Much to Pete and Gary's disgust, I insisted we stop to capture the colour of the cloud chasing us (below).
We managed to dodge the rain but the last 10km into Stratford, the road began to get quite busy.
It was with some relief that we neared the end of our 40km ride and were able to take the back roads in Staraford and move away from the traffic.
First stop was the local pub where we decided to stop for a late lunch. They were actually quite busy so we lingered there for a couple of hours before cycling up to the campground to book in for the night.
A lovely girl called Kate was on in reception and rented Gary a cabin and gave us the pick of the tent sites seeing as we were the only tent there. She also informed us there was a spa pool so as soon as the tent was up, that's where we headed. Fantastic for the muscles to relax before we headed back to the pub for dinner.
As we wandered around Stratford, we finally got to see the mountain after cloud has kept it covered for the past two days. It was a cold night (a rarity in Stratford - yeah right!) so we were wearing every piece of clothing we'd taken!
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