This day's main program was the Arthur's Pass. From Geraldine we first rode a road that ran in the middle of the green fields, meadows, and pastures. That landscape could have been from Finnish countryside except the dark mountain range in the horizon. From Sheffield we turned to the road to the Arthur's Pass.

While we were sitting in the porch of a combined village store and cafeteria in Springfield, we admired a traffic sign, that prohibited all vehicles, and vehicle combinations of over 13 meters in Otira Gorge. Very promising for today's leg.

The Arthur's Pass is 170 kilometers long. There are actually two passes in it. The Porter's Pass, and the Otira Gorge. The highest points of them both are over 900 meters above the sea level. The road profile is like a camel back with two humps. There runs also a railway along the road, and the journey from Christchurch to the west coast takes five hours by train. There is also the longest railroad tunnel in NZ, the Otira tunnel, that is 8,5 kilometers long.

In the Porter's Pass we stopped for photographing some weird-looking black volcanic rocks. I waited on the bike, while Elina photographed. Suddenly an oncoming car braked hard just where we were. It was a Japanese young couple, probably on their honeymoon, and the man asked: "is ok to take picture?", and showed his camera. I thought he wanted a picture of themselves in front of that volcanic scenery, so I nodded, and tried to park the bike. Then he said "no, no!", and gave his camera to the lady. I was still amazed when the guy leaned agaist the Beemer fairing and took that grotesque grin. He then added the Japanese trademark, "v for victory" -style sign and the lady photographed him there. They then thanked, rushed back to the car, and with tyres screaming headed towards Christchurch. I suppose the honeymoon was over, and they had too few exotique photos. I just wonder, what do they explain about their Kiwi biker mates, when they show that picture to their friends.

In the Otira Gorge we saw the third 15 kph curve. The Otira Gorge road is a constant slope from 900 meters down to the sea level in the west coast. However we took again a slightly different route, and from the Otira River valley we turned towards Stillwater. In Stillwater we stopped to see a former coalmine. Unguarded parking along the main road and one hour's walking time made us decide to look the place only from a distance instead of going any closer.

The Greymouth YHA was a big and beautiful building. It was a former living quarters of Marist Brothers, with seaview rooms upstairs. The most famous room was the old Chapel, that has turned into a 10-bed dorm. We had our own room with double bed. A positive surprise, when you reserve your room in a holiday season only couple a days in advance.