Murder Scene

Bit of a funny exercise weekend. As I said, we are concentrating on cycling at the moment. It's good for the body to have a change but to keep exercising; also we need to become somewhat accustomed to life in the saddle before we make the sudden onslaught on the Central Otago Rail Trail next weekend.

Friday we went for our usual walk into Oxford for internetting at the library, a coffee, and back. That is exactly 5 kms. The plan for the afternoon was to cycle the “back” road to Cust , including a coffee (do you spot a theme here) at the cafe and amazing Emporium there. This ride is about 45 kms, including a very loose gravel road to be covered twice, some hills, and some long, flat, straight roads which will probably be produced in evidence by some crackpot writing a book to prove the Romans were here before the Maori or the Chinese. I also planned to do another 5 kms walk after the bike ride.

Everything went a bit awry on the return leg from Cust. My back tyre received several punctures in an area where, a couple of days before, we had seen a farmer cutting his thorn hedges. At this stage we were about 15 or 16 kms from base. I decided to walk on while Gay cycled “home” to Oxford to retrieve the car and then retrieve me and the bike. I avoided the gravel road and continued down the long, straight German Road (it's called that to confuse us about the Romans). During the 70 minutes I was walking, only four cars passed me. Excellent setting for an uninterrupted murder.

Having been rescued by Gay. I mended one puncture, then another, then another. There was still air coming from the inner tube so I fitted a new tube and consigned the old one to other duties (they are excellent for holding bikes onto car cycle racks). I didn't go for the planned second walk for obvious reasons.

Saturday was cold and wet so we contented ourselves with a walk into town and back.

Sunday the wind had turned to southerly, which has the effect in New Zealand of opening the freezer door. That and laziness combined to restrict us to the morning walk and a wallow with the weekend papers.