South Island New Zealand by bike.

In my eyes, one of New Zealand’s most famous exports is  Ernest Rutherford , Nobel laureate and   1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson . And today, we rode through his backyard. We passed his  first school in Foxhill , his  birthplace at Brightwater , and rolled along  Rutherford Road in Nelson . In the coming days we’ll also head toward  Havelock , where his father once ran a flax mill. Not a bad bit of history to ride through.

The rain arrived right on schedule at   6 am   and stuck around until about   1 pm . At breakfast in Murchison there were a few cyclists debating whether to ride or sit the day out. We didn’t have that luxury.

We rolled out into a   thick fog , which probably wasn’t ideal, but with decent front and rear lights set to daylight mode, we felt reasonably visible.