Our trip into Invercargill was the worst day of cycling so far with headwind for all 65km and one hour of heavy rain came with it as well. During that time I (Jonas) left my phone in my rain jacket's pocket which was not waterproof (which I knew but somehow ignored). When we arrived in Invercargill, my phone was soaking wet and stopped working. It never turned on again, rest in peace, my trusty companion...

In Invercargill we got some new groceries and some wine before going to some of the electronics shops, hoping they could fix my broken lens. Unfortunately, non of them could help us and we were told that a broken flex cable can only be repaired with a new flex cable. As Samsung quit the camera business, such cable is impossible to get. This left us with the certainty that we need a replacement that would have to be bought somewhere abroad and sent to NZ. With a broken lens and a broken phone we got to our Couchsurfing host who lived on the edge of the city. There we had a nice room for ourselves, had a refreshing shower and enjoyed the evening with Wraps, some wine and a movie.

The next day we had some perfect weather that we wanted to use to get back on our bikes. Unfortunately we had to take some time to find a replacement for my phone as Vroni's phone cannot handle our banking apps, leaving us unable to transfer any kind of money. We went to all different shops available and settled for a quite decent Huawei P8 lite for $150 (~100€) in the end. Back at our host's place Vroni packed our stuff and I took some short time to download the most important apps before getting back on the road. The weather was perfect and we followed some small side roads close to the coast to get to the small city Riverton in the afternoon. Even though it was almost 6pm already, we continued biking to reach the free campsite at a small beach close to an island (Monkey Island) which you can walk to during low tide. The forecast for the next day did not look very promising so asked a sheep farmer close to the island whether he could give us a shed or something similar to sleep in. He offered us his wool shed which had a shower, a toilet and a kitchen. There we had a shower, made some quick dinner and then started to visit the nearby Monkey Island just when the sun was setting and the light became stunningly beautiful. We arrived there just at the right time and enjoyed a lovely sunset (see our video for that).

In the morning we let some early showers pass and started biking at around 10:30am. The weather was great but we had an insane South-Westerly wind that got us from the side and almost pushed us off our bikes. In some situations it was so strong that we were pushed onto the oncoming lane, luckily there were only few cars on the road that day. After 20 tiring kilometres, our road turned inland and we enjoyed some tail wind at last. From there on it was a lovely day of cycling through rural areas with nice countryside. In the afternoon we got to Clifden Caves which are limestone caves that you can explore on your own which should have glow worms and some formations inside. We expected to have a nice stroll through the cave but were pleasantly surprised to find a cave that had tight passages, small holes to crouch through and a great feeling of adventure in them. Close to the end we even got to a pool that we had to cross. The water inside was just black and cloudy, leaving us with no idea how deep it was and whether it was even possible to walk through. I went ahead, got off my shoes and got in the water. I took some careful steps forwards to see how deep the water was and found a way along the left wall of the pool. By the time Vroni had climbed down, my feet were almost frozen and it was almost unreal to be standing in a black pool within a cave in the middle of nowhere in New Zealand. After getting out of the cave we had planned to cycle another 30km but the muscle in my right thigh started to hurt with every meter we biked. After 10km we asked a farmer for campsite and were told about a small spot close to the river just 2km down the road. We got there, put up our tent, had a shower out of our water bag with view over the river and enjoyed some pasta for dinner before getting to bed early.

The next morning was cold and it took us a while to get out of our beds but we still managed to be on the road by 9am. The pain in my thigh was better but still came back during the day, making us slow during the whole day and the pain made the one hill we had to cross quite a challenge. Apart from this little hurdle it was a great sunny day that took us through some valley with view of the hills of Fjordland Nationalpark. Somehow we managed to get all the 60km to Manapouri where we planned to take a rest day as the forecast showed 40mm of rain for the next day and my leg needed some rest anyway.

So here we are right now, having time to cut and upload our video, plan our next steps and we decided to walk the Kepler Track on Thursday and Friday. For that we will cycle to Te Anau tomorrow, borrow a smaller tent that we can hike with and hopefully find a place where can leave our bikes and luggage for the time.

All the best wishes from New Zealand,

Keep cycling,

Vroni & Jonas