I slept in a bit today trying to recover from the long race day yesterday. I finally rolled out of my tent and packed up my camping gear which was unfortunately wet from the night intermittant rain. I'll have to dry it out tonight wherever I end up.

I rode up the hill to meet roger at the B&B, and as yesterday when I walked in Graham and Rosie both nearly attacked me with their hospitality, "do you want a shower? tea? breakfast?" I felt a little awkward as I'm not a paying guest but after there genuine concern for my comfort was made clear to me I greatfully accepted their offers of food and a shower. Their guests had checked out for the day and Graham lead upstairs to use the large upstairs suite bathroom shower. Talk about living in the lap of luxury... A room that was nearly a third the size of my whole house with 12 foot ceilings, a king sized bed, a queen sized, bed, a fireplace, a veritable wall of glass overlooking Dunedins downtown, and a large bathroom featuring a claw foot tub, a shower, a copper tanked toilet, and lots of period decoration. I can't thank Graham and Rosie enough for their hospitality and friendliness. I hope someday that I can treat them as cordially.

Roger and I drove the Tiger down to the street race and, though we weren't racing today, were ushered right into the paddock with all the other race cars. There were probably three times as many cars running the street race as there were running the hillclimb yesterday. The Dunedin Street Race is a spectacular event that is run in the public street of southern Dunedin as well as a stretch of motorway. I can't imagine ever being able to close part of I-5 in Washington state for a whole day to run a street race as they have basically done here in Dunedin. The course is made up of two fast straights, a couple hairpins, and some tight turns all on on then suddenly off camber crowned street surfaces, and 2 lane motorway condensed down to 1 lane at the entrance and exit ramps. Extremely exciting is all I can say. The pictures are self explanatory. Intense racing.

Then of course it started to rain... Roger and I hurried back up to the B&B and the garage trying not to get too wet. Roger packed up all his gear as he had to drive up to Christchurch so he could put the Tiger back in its container to ship home early tomorrow morning. Roger and I said our goodbyes, and I profusely thanked Graham and Rosie for their over the top hospitality.

I rode southwest out of Dunedin on highway 1 to Balclutha where I turned south onto the Southern Coast Scenic Route that went through the Catlins park area on the way to Invercargill.

The Catlins area of the southern coast is an intersting mix of wetland, rolling farm land, tropical yucatan peninsula like jungle and beaches, and north florida like everglades with the random waterfall every once in a while. There was 14 miles of unpaved road in the middle of the scenic detour that was great fun. Nothing to earth shattering, but it was exciting be a "bit of a hoon" and bombing along the gravel road at 60mph passing cars and RVs when the chance arose.

Out of the west side of the Catlins the road straightened and flattened out almost painfully and a strong head wind made me exert a bit more effort to forge on to Invercargill.

I found a holiday park, though not a Top 10, that had a cabin for $15 for the night. A little low rent, but suitable. I did some much needed laundry, gorged on some suprisingly good chinese chow mein takeout and finally caught up on my journal entries for the past few days.