While we aren't known for our early starts the owner of the establishment was behind us by a long way, probably blaming someone for spiking his drink, although it was the people still in the pool that impressed me most. Since it was to be a short day we invested some time faffing with Andy 'it worked when I was at home' Cross's stove. While cooking up some eggs the Red spokes crew arrived and after the same initial skepticism that Steve 'rarely cautious' Wyatt showed when presented with an excellent chance to bathe with all manor of bacteria they jumped in; blissfully unaware of the party which had only just been evicted.
After checking the Red spokes crew were in good spirits we set off for the day. We only had 60km to cover which would have been made easier if the wind eased up and the surface smoothed out. Even so it was a relatively easy day which was to position ourselves for the last big up and over of the trip tomorrow. On the way we had plenty of company with plenty of overtaking with the not the Red spokes crew and the Whitehaven couple. In fact it was such an easy day we decided to stop at a convenient restaurant for a spot of food in the afternoon. It never occurred us to ponder why the owner would have chosen the middle of nowhere to build an eating establishment but had it crossed our minds we would have lowered our expectations somewhat. We rapidly established no common spoken language between ourselves and anyone else there and after some waving we were ushered into the kitchen to point at what we wanted to eat. Like three students at a house auction we all studiously avoided even looking at the lump of meat hanging up just in case that was mistaken for the death wish that would have been a desire to eat any of it. safe food firmly pointed at we were sat back down and given the obligatory tea while the owner preened himself in a mirror. Given that we are all still alive I can only assume our hints about the meat were taken.
Dragging ourselves back onto to the road we pottered along until we saw the Red spokes crew setting up camp and continued for a couple of km up the valley until we found a nice flat spot to break camp. This was to be our last high wild camp and we enjoyed star gazing, right up to the point where our toes started to freeze when we headed in for an early night and some guide book reading.