Day 7 was another decent sized run of about 600km from Christchurch to my sister's place in Richmond via a few little deteours here and there.

I left my motel around 8am and pointed the Tenere West.  My first stop was for fuel in Springfield but I just made it a splash and dash and was soon back on the great West Coast Road.

At one stage I caught some traffic (including a HP car) stuck behind a truck but he quickly pulled over.  The cop then did a dirty on me by pulling over, letting the 2 cars past and then pulling in behind to check me out.

This meant me watching my speedo like a hawk for about 15km until he pulled off - good thing I never speed.  He eventually pulled off just before light controlled road works that had me waiting for a few minutes before I could continue on.
My first diversion was to check out a short gravel road that I'd found listed on the Adventure Riding NZ Forum.  Waimakariri Valley Road takes you about 1.5km off the main road to a campsite by the river.  When I got there people were still cooking breakfast...

Here's some video of the ride in:

At the car park/campsite I stopped for some pictures and my warm gloves - it was a bit of a chilly morning and perhaps looking like things might get damp later on...

After the ride out I stopped again - I decided that I didn't like my thick gloves after all and just made do with the heated grips...

Next up was more of the magnificent West Coast road through Arthurs Pass an...