Oh that West Coast Wilderness Trail

12 Sunday May 2019

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Day 1

After riding the Heaphy, but before going to Christchurch to do some work and watch some roller derby, I thought it would be nice to ride this thing called The West Coast Wilderness Trail. So I hitched a ride with Coo, Sugar and Crunch, down the West Coast to Ross, and stayed the night at the quietly awesome Empire Hotel. In the morning, my plan was to find the the cafe described to me by the proprietor of the pub as “just next door”, have a pleasant breakfast and then get going. But I couldn’t find it, so I went to the dairy instead. I bought a a cup of tea and a prepackaged fridge-muffin, neither of which was very nice. As I sat outside consuming them and talking to a local person, I saw a couple on bikes emerge from a side street and go into what I now realised was The Cafe (two doors up from the dairy). Appalled at my navigational incompetence and with my sad breakfast concluded, I rode off in the direction of the sea.

The first section of the trail was an old railway line heading down the coast for a few kilometres. It was flat & pleasant but not overly interesting. Then there was a brief bit of highway riding then down a side road for some more ks before being pointed toward an old tramway that led through some bush. And this was where the trail started to get good. The track was firm, the bush was lovely, and the historical information panels were bit interesting. There were some people coming the other way on bikes – it was all on. One group was a parent with several happy looking children, the other was a middle aged couple on touring bikes with the full complement of Ortlieb panniers.

The next section of trail was out on the coast, over some bridges to Hokitika – home of ’Sock World’. I stopped at a cafe there for a cup of tea, but they were playing the particular kind of jazz that I hate, so I went somewhere else. I also had a chat to the very helpful women at the I-Site. I was looking for a place to camp about halfway along the trail. But the options were pretty limited – there was a DOC campsite at Lake Kaniere which looked nice but was only 50km along and was just before the only climb on the trail. The weather forecast was predicting rain starting in the evening and becoming heavy the following day. So that would mean packing up a wet tent and then riding over a hill in the pouring rain. Which didn’t sound ideal. According to the map, there was a campsite on the other side of the hill at about 80km, and then just a little further on was a toilet/shelter where they told me it would be fine to camp. So I cycled off from Hokitika, not sure where I was going to spend the night.

The trail from town spent some time running next to the river before moving on to some quiet local roads and going uphill a bit. Then it was off on to a gravel road next to a canal and some nice single-track through the bush. It was lovely and empty. I saw 2 other cyclists, one guy going the other way on a mountain bike and I was passed by a woman on a cyclocross bike.

The track to Lake Kanniere was next to a kind of canal too – I’m wondering if it was all built to supply water from the lake to Hokitika. I stopped for lunch at the lake and decided to keep riding. It rained a bit while I was on the quiet gravel roads of the lovely Arahura Valley. I didn’t see any people but the horses were very friendly. There was a bit of a climb and a downed tree blocking the track going up to Cowboy Paradise. Which is a weird place. You emerge from the bush in to a clearing and it’s just there. A few half built buildings, a couple of cars and a big generator.

I leaned my bike against a hitching post outside the building that seemed the most finished and opened the front door. Inside were some restaurant style tables, a couple of very friendly staff, and a man with a 3 or 4 year old child watching Frozen on an enormous television. I ordered a cheese toasted sandwich and a cup of tea, and chatted to the man. He and his son had stopped for the night on their way along the trail. I told him I was intending to camp somewhere up ahead and he confirmed that there was “a guy with a truck in a field” on the other side of the pass (which didn’t sound promising).

So with “Let it go, let it go!” stuck in my head, I climbed back on my bike & rode out of town and over the pass. Which sounds like how you should leave a place called “Cowboy Paradise”. It wasn’t very steep & I was soon enjoying a pleasant downhill run on a lovely quiet track through some bush in the rain. I found the first potential campsite – it was indeed an old house truck in a clearing, alongside a stack of firewood covered with a tarpaulin. It looked a bit creepy so I kept riding. Not long after, there was another clearing with a plywood shelter & a toilet next to a canal. The rain was still falling and I did stop for a few minutes to think about whether this would be a good place to camp. But there was a guy walking up & down the canal waving a fishing rod around. I mean he seemed ok but it wasn’t raining much and it wasn’t a great spot to stop, and it was only another 20ks to Kumara so I just kept going.

The trail led me next to a canal again which after a while fed in to a lake. A lake surrounded by by bush with what looked like a drowned forest on one side, with severed trunks & branches reaching up through the silvery surface of the still water in to the misty twilight. It was beautiful and quiet and a little unsettling. Until I came across a cartoon style sign informing me that “Only animals pee and poo in the bush – not you!” and that if I needed to there was a public toilet block behind me. And sure enough, when I turned around, there was. An apparently virtually new toilet block squatting unsympathetically by the the lake.

With the light fading I started down the trail, checked my dynamo lights were working (they weren’t), fiddled with the wiring until they did, and then rode down to the collection of houses known as Kumara. I had a quick ride around, before inquiring at the very flash looking Theatre Royale. They had cheap ($50) rooms across the road, and food & drink available. So that’s where I stayed the night. I spent the evening in the bar eating a pizza and listening to a fat American man sniff every 30 seconds while he ate a pizza and a pie & chips and drank beer, while he watched a baseball match on his tablet. The other patrons were a very drunk, very loud Australian woman who was talking to a much older man, who kept telling her to calm down.

Day 2

I awoke to the sound of rain on the roof and the smell of bacon frying. When I got up and went to the kitchen, my fellow guests were up. I’m guessing they were a mother & her 20 something son. I had seen her the previous night, standing on the pavement outside the Theatre Royal holding her laptop, I assumed she was scrounging their wifi. She had also cunningly set a trap for me with the same laptop in the kitchen. Stringing its cables between the counter and the table, nearly tripping me up in the middle of the night. This morning her son was eating a bacon & egg sandwich so thick, he could barely get his mouth around it. They seemed nice enough.

I packed my bike, expecting an easy 28km ride to Greymouth. And while it wasn’t far, with rain coming & going, and quite a strong headwind coming down the coast for the last stretch, it felt like hard work. The trail was pleasant though, first there was some bush, followed by farmland and then running along next to the highway, the airport and the Greymouth harbour.

I arrived in Greymouth & found a friendly but slightly weird backpackers featuring an zoo theme. Each room was dedicated to a different animal. They gave me the ‘pig’ room. Hand painted pig mural on the wall, pig soft toy on the bed etc. It was ghastly. The next day I caught the Trans Alpine train to Christchurch.

More pictures here.

Around the Mountains (Day 3)

31 Tuesday Jul 2018

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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Around the Mountains, Cycling, MB4, new zealand, touring

I have never visited the town of Kingston that resides in Jamaica, but I’m pretty sure it’s nothing like the (Southland) Kingston that I woke up in. This one was cold and misty and pleasantly quiet. And all I had to do for the day was ride 40km to Queenstown.

If day 1 was the beautiful scenery day, and day 2 was the long rainy day, then I was expecting today to be the scary highway day. All the guides I’d read, said that the highway between Kingston and Queenstown was best avoided. Don’t ride it they said, take a shuttle they said. So I tried to book a shuttle, but the company I emailed didn’t seem very keen. They wouldn’t come at the time I wanted, and were going to charge $90. Meanwhile the news was full of reports of foreigners driving on the wrong side of the roads all over the South Island. So I had a look on Strava, and it seemed that some roadies were managing to cycling along there quite frequently. At least one person was using the highway to commute to work! Well, it can’t be that hard then, I thought, despite part of the road being called The Devil’s Staircase(!). My strategy consisted of getting up not too early, having breakfast in the Kingston Cafe while the morning tour busses blundered past on their way to Milford Sound, and then quickly riding to Queenstown before the buses came back in the afternoon.

So I had a shower (the luxury!) packed up my wet stuff and rode up to the Kingston Cafe for some breakfast. Much like the 5 Rivers Cafe the previous day, this place was full of middle-aged men on motorcycle tours of the South Island. They were having a loud conversation about how cold and wet the weather was, and making motorbike jokes that I didn’t understand. It was one of the most boring conversations I have ever overheard. At about 10am I decided the road was about as safe as it was going to get, and I set off.

Either my strategy worked perfectly or I had been worrying too much, because it was actually quite a nice ride. The views were spectacular, the drivers were mostly quite considerate, and there was no sign of The Devil. In fact I think that section of the road should be renamed something much less daunting – Satan’s Wheelchair Ramp perhaps?

I arrived unmolested in Queenstown after midday and rolled triumphantly (and anonymously) along a trail next to the lake. I found my way to a cheap but shabby campground where I spent the afternoon drying my stuff on the grass in the sun. In the evening I met up with Machete, and when I told her about being savaged by the Mavora Lakes Sandflies, she informed me that the SAS keep them away with Avon Skin-so-Soft, so that’s what I’ll be taking with me next time.

Route here.

Around the Mountains (Day 2)

06 Friday Oct 2017

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Around the Mountains, Cycling, MB4, new zealand, touring

I woke up to grey blue light filtering through my grey & blue tent and ate some flapjack. By the time I was halfway through packing up my stuff, the Mavora Lakes sandflies had formed a cloud around me and were taking turns to attack me in squadrons (at one point I ran actually ran up to the road to get away from them). But soon I was on my (itchy) way, looking forward to a long day in the (literal) saddle.The rain began falling just after I turned south on the Mavora Lakes Road, but despite the weather I was enjoying myself – the gravel road was flat and deserted, there were fields and animals and shelter belts. There were probably mountains, but I couldn’t see them. Other than me, there were hardly people around.
I was expecting to to have to spend some time on the Te Anau – Mossburn Highway, but just before arriving at that intersection, I saw out of the corner of my eye, a little bridge. When I rode over to it I found that it led to a cycle trail that took me all the way to Mossburn. Hooray for being able to stay off the highway. Now, let me tell you about one of the serious dangers of cycling long distances – getting a catchy song you hate stuck in your head. My personal nemesis is the Manhattan Transfer’s We Built This City on Rock and Rock and Roll. I can’t tell you how much I loathe that song, but once it’s in my brain it won’t shift.
To pre-empt such a dire event and to keep myself amused, I sang other songs on my way to Mossburn, starting with The The’s This is the Day;

Well you didn’t wake up this morning
Cause you didn’t go to bed
You were watching the whites of your eyes turn red

Followed by Billy Bragg’s A New England

I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them but they were only satellites
It’s wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish I wish I wish you’d care

I don’t usually get bored on long bicycle rides, I’m happy with my own (frequently repetitive and inane) thoughts. My father used to say to me that “a civilised man can spend 3 hours at a railway station and not be bored.” (I don’t know if he thought civilised women had such capabilities, he didn’t mention them). He was certainly a good exponent of this. He always seemed only lightly tethered to the real world, ready to drift off and find amusement in his own thoughts at any time. A pause in conversation, or a red traffic light and he would be gone. Only dragged back when it was necessary for him to answer a question or resume driving. These days his connection to the physical world has (thanks to dementia) come adrift in time too. He’s happiest in the firm ground of the past, while the present is shifting sand that holds him only briefly before he slips away.
I stopped at the first place I came to in Mossburn that sold food. It was not a sophisticated establishment, but the guy working there was nice. I ate fish & chips surrounded by tacky souvenirs, watching tourists in buses coming in to buy cups of coffee. The rain was still falling and I was as wet as an otter. I left Mossburn and followed the highway to Five Rivers. The official Around the Mountains route involves going to Lumsden but I couldn’t be arsed with that this time. There’s a good sized cafe in Five Rivers so I stopped to have a look. It was fairly full, mostly, it seemed with groups of men on motorcycling holidays. They were swishing in and out, dressed in soggy protective clothing, ordering large meals and complaining about the weather. It felt too crowded so I squelched out, got back on my bike and found the next section of the cycle trail. The rain continued and and I was getting tired. Seeing some alpacas cheered me up though. They reminded me of a roller derby player whose derby name was Alpaca Punch.
I started to see signs warning me that I was entering a working farm and that there were hazards everywhere. Then I saw an actual farmer – I waved, he opened a gate for me, I thanked him, it seemed like a friendly interaction. But the next farm along wasn’t so cordial. They had in fact put a padlock on and locked the gate across the cycle trail. Which meant that I had to remove my front panniers and then grunt & curse while lifting my bike over the gate. I put the panniers back on and continued riding while wondering what the hell that was all about. Then the same thing happened at the next gate, and the next and… Five. Five bloody gates in a row were padlocked. I don’t know why.
At some point in the afternoon I arrived in Athol, and dripped in to The Brown Trout Cafe. The woman who took my request for soup and toast was very nice. We talked about sandflies and she told me that her boyfriend had a serious allergy to them and has some super strong special repellant. She tried using it once on her hands and her nail polish melted. A somewhat melancholy poodle came to see me while I waited for my food. I patted her and she stayed a few minutes before wandering off to sit by the door and stare out at the rain. According to my notes, the soup was fine and it was accompanied by “the best buttered toast I’ve ever eaten”.
Slightly revived by food, warmth and company, I embarked on the last stretch of my ride to Kingston. The track was as deserted as ever (I didn’t see a single other cyclist all day) and the rain was still falling and I was still tired. The flat terrain was punctuated with bridges now and then and I was starting to think about what I would do when I arrived in Kingston. How will I reward myself for all this effort? A lie down? A shower? A cup of tea? All of these things at the same time? Having spent the whole day wet, I decided not to camp for the night, but to treat myself to a room or cabin of some kind. Somewhere dry.
On the last 10k’s or so to Kingston, there are markers every kilometre, counting down the distance (or counting out the distance if you’re going the other way I suppose). These were perfect for feeding my fantasies about what I would do when I arrived – 5km to a warm shower. 4km to lie on a dry bed! Ah the luxury I was anticipating. It was enormously disappointing therefore, to find that they had no, I repeat no, rooms left. Not even a barn. Even Jesus had better facilities. They did kindly let me put my tent up in the barbecue area (in the pouring rain) though. So I did that, and then spent the evening drying my clothes in front of a tiny heater in the dining room that was on a timer and had to be switched back on every 20min. I fell asleep to the sound of rain on polyester, and the humming of wind in the guy lines.

Route here.

Around the Mountains (Day 1)

10 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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Around the Mountains, Cycling, MB4, new zealand, touring

I have conflicting feeling about starting tours. I’m excited to get going, I’m worried that I’ve forgotten something vital and I’m sad to be leaving Coo behind. On this occasion I was also stressed because the scrambled eggs wouldn’t cook and I had a ferry to catch. You see…

We were staying with Machete & Bec in Queenstown. The four of us, plus four more of The Pirate City Rollers finest roller derby players had just completed the Routeburn Track the day before. And now I was setting off by myself, to ride Around the Mountains. I was catching The Earnslaw across Lake Wakatipu so I abandoned the eggs to Coo and scampered out the door. Bec told me it was best to ride in to town on the trails rather than the road. So I did, until I lost them around the airport and rode the rest of the way on the proper road. I had a couple of things to do in town – first, I bought some food. And second, pick up my camera (that I had somehow left behind) from the post office. I didn’t have much time before the ferry left, so I was anxiously waiting in the queue when an older couple came in. They had the air of people who were unfamiliar with the place and they sounded European, so I tried to stay in front of them, assuming they might be awkward customers. I succeeded, and as I scampered out, tearing the bubble-wrap off my camera, I could hear a man yelling in what might have been a Belgian accent “IS THIS BONK?”. I got to the ferry just in time to line up behind a million tourists waiting to board.

I made it safely on, stowed my bike and fought my way to the refreshments bar to buy a cup of tea and a muffin. The ferry was crammed with people and the only seat I could find was downstairs on a pleasantly warm bench, facing the water. I was just finishing my tea when I was forced to accept that the the formerly pleasant bench was now in fact burning my arse (damn steam-powered vessels) and I spent the rest of the journey standing upstairs leaning against a banister

I got off the ferry Walter Peak, left the tourists in the gift shop, said hello to a couple of sheep out the back, and got on the road. The scenery was beautiful, the sky was bluer than the National Party logo, and the mountains were more spectacular than Mike Hosking’s ego. My plan was to ride 60km to the Mavora Lakes, camp for the night, ride 120km the next day to Kingston and camp again, then ride the 40km back to Queenstown the following day. Where I would stay in relative luxury (something with a roof and walls perhaps?) before flying back to Auckland.I was trying not to make the same mistake I made last time I visited this part of NZ, which was to have an overly ambitious but inflexible plan. But it was starting to look like I might have done exactly the same thing this time. The first day should be fine, but tomorrow looked hard. And riding along (up?) the ominously named ‘Devils Staircase’ amongst tour buses and tourists sounded scary.It was a great start to the ride though – I had the road almost to myself, as it led me down the side of Lake Wakatipu. There was quite a headwind which slowed me down, but I was in no big hurry. According to the Kennetts, there was only one significant hill I needed to get over, but it wasn’t until the road turned away from the lake. I saw a few other cyclists going in the opposite direction but they didn’t appear to be traveling far.After a while the road indeed turned left and started to climb and I wondered if that was the ‘significant hill’. It wasn’t too steep, although I did have to slow down when I was surrounded by hundreds of sheep who were all on their way somewhere. I didn’t see any people (or dogs) around so I didn’t know what prompted this expedition. One of them was limping a bit so I tried avoid her. But sheep have a way of always going where you want to go, and you would rather they didn’t go.Over the hill and past the sheep I rode through a beautiful valley. There was a river on my right and cows on my left. The wind had gone to bother some other cyclists or ruffle a cat’s fur, or maybe give a hawk that extra bit of lift it’s looking for, so I made better progress. Then the road started to go up quite steeply and I eventually realised that this was the ‘significant climb’. I knew it was a ‘significant climb’ when I had to stop for a little rest. At the crest of the hill I could see the road stretching for miles in to the distance between mountain ranges. It looked amazing and the wind had finished it’s business elsewhere and returned, this time to give me a push and I flew down the road.It was brilliant riding all the way to the Mavora Lakes turnoff where I was suddenly cycling through a forest next to a lake.As I put up my tent, it became apparent that this area’s reputation for being popular with sandflies is well deserved. So I hid in my tent and ate noodles. Pretty soon I was lying down. Not long after that I was reading, and drifting off to sleep.

Route here.

More pictures here.

Bike Camping in Miranda

12 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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All-City, Cycling, Miranda, new zealand, Spacehorse, touring

Some time ago, I started a bicycle club. It was an offshoot from Tumeke Cycle Space, an opportunity I thought, for us volunteers to get together and go for some rides. Either around Auckland or further afield. So far the club has no rules, no official positions, no logo and no regular meetings. What generally happens is that someone has an idea for a ride, they talk to some others via a Loomio group or in person. And then those who want to go, go. It was Alex R’s idea to go for a camping overnight in August. I suggested taking the train to Papakura and then cycling down to Miranda, staying at the campground and riding back the next day. Others said they were keen. Then an astute member pointed out that they were no trains going to Papakura that weekend. Let’s ride all the way(!) I suggested. Thinking quietly to myself that 100km each way might be quite hard. Alex R and Josca both expressed their enthusiasm and we met in Onehunga on Saturday morning, ready to go.

I didn’t know what would be the best route to the Hunuas, so I copied the one taken by riders in the Tour Aotearoa. This passes through Onehunga, past the airport, down Puhunui Rd, up a hill in Pakuranga and through Totara Park. I wasn’t familiar with Totara park at all, but actually, it’s pretty nice. We did have a little incident when we came upon a dog running about, barking at some some cows. So I leaned over the fence and yelled really loudly and angrily at it to “GETOUTATTHERE”. And the dog ran away.

Soon after that we started to leave suburbia behind and roll in to ‘The Country’. This part of ‘The Country’ has quite a lot of traffic in it though, and it wasn’t until we turned off the Papakura-Clevedon Road and on to Ardmore Quarry Rd that things quietened down. There were no cars, lovely scenery, creepy abandoned houses in the bush – now this was more like it. There were also some steep hills and a bit of getting lost, before arriving in Hunua, where Josca purchased a cup of coffee.

From there we rode down the Paparimu Valley and out to the coast, pausing fairly briefly to fix a puncture on Josca’s rear tyre while Alex disappeared off in to the distance. Alex was in more of a hurry to get to our destination, mostly I think due to his unwise decision to use this trip to ‘break in’ a new Brooks saddle. When we caught up with him a few kms from the campground, he complained about us being slow so I told him about Josca’s puncture and tried to make him feel bad for not coming back to see if we were ok.

The campground in Miranda was nice, although quite big and busy. There were lots of campervans, and buses full of a children’s softball team (we got to know them a little better later on when they stole our table in the kitchen and their parents had a really loud birthday party). On the up side, you could buy beer from the camp office and children aren’t allowed in the hot pool after 8pm. The hot pool by the way, is really nice, particularly after a long day on a bicycle. Josca, Alex and I floated around for quite some time talking a lot of boring shit about bikes for an hour or two before retiring to our respective tents.

The next morning we scoffed a First Breakfast in the campground kitchen, before heading back to Auckland. We paused for a little while on the way at the Miranda Farm Stop, where we had Second Breakfast (tea & scones) and again at the garage opposite that weird, tacky (and now closed) ice-cream place that looks a bit like a castle. We were a bit slower, and a bit more chatty riding back. The weather was pleasant and the road was quiet all the way up to Hunua, where we stopped for more food (a nice cheese & onion pastie for me). It was even quieter through the back roads down to Ardmore, the only significant event being Josca getting another puncture.

From Ardmore to Pakuranga wasn’t very pleasant – too much traffic going too fast. Alex & Josca were ahead of me as we entered Totara Park and they went the wrong way. So while I retraced our route through the lovely park, taking a little detour to the top of the hill, they were climbing fences and struggling across fields. I met up with them again at the park gate and didn’t gloat at all. The stretch from Pakuranga, past the airport to Onehunga felt like a slog, and as we rode up the hill through the Onehunga Mall, Alex said goodbye and turned left to make his way home. Then Josca turned off too, while I continued up to Cornwall Park & back to my house.

Route here.

More pictures here.

Coromandel, the Hard Way

26 Sunday Jun 2016

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Coromandel, Cycling, Fletchers Bay, new zealand, Stony Bay, touring

It was early on the Sunday afternoon of Queen’s Birthday weekend, and Guy & I were chatting with the local park ranger at Fletcher Bay. We were lying on the grass congratulating ourselves on completing a ridiculously difficult section of our weekend tour and feeding bits of apple to some ducks.

Ranger – So where have you ridden from?
Us – Stony Bay.
Ranger – Yeah that track’s pretty hard.
Us – Well it’s a big hill.
Ranger – Hill? You took the walking track didn’t you?
Us – No, the the mountain bike track.
Ranger – The mountain bike track? What, over the hill?
Us – Yes.
Ranger – Really? You rode over the hill?
Us – Yes.
Ranger – Oh, um, we always tell people not to go up there. It’s too hard. We tell them to take the walking track.
Us – It is quite hard. You should tell the people who look after the Stony Bay campground, they’ve got a sign up telling people on bikes that they have to take the mountain bike track.
Ranger – Oh… Ok… I’ll have a word with them.

This whole thing had started when I was talking to Guy at a Sunday afternoon shift at Tumeke Cycle Space. He asked if I was keen to go for a ride around the Coromandel Peninsula. I said I was keen. He said that it would probably be quite hard, because there would be several thousand meters of climbing. I said that would be fine. So I bought a sleeping bag, borrowed a tent, packed my stuff on to the Space Horse and cycled over to Guy’s house early on Saturday morning. The drive down to Coromandel Township was beautiful. I’m always reluctant to get up early, but it’s always worth it. There was plenty of mist covering parts of Auckland, the sun came out as we sped over the Bombay Hills, and the mist returned as we descended toward the Hauraki Plains. It was freezing, even the cows looked cold.

After getting our bikes loaded up, our first challenge was to get over the Coromandel ranges between Coromandel Township and Kennedy Bay. This wasn’t too hard, despite our bikes being fairly heavy. But we established as we coasted down to Kennedy Bay that I’m a much more timid descender than Guy. I could blame the narrower tyres on my bike, but I don’t think I will.

Kennedy Bay was very quiet – a few houses, one dog, no people and nice marae. There was very little traffic around as we headed North toward Stony Bay. Not surprising really as the quality of the ‘road’ deteriorated significantly. Sometimes we would pass through a bay with some houses and tar-seal, but then the gravel would return and the size of the rocks making up the gravel would increase.

The hills were pretty steep too. So it was a relief to arrive in Stony Bay at about 5 in the afternoon. It’s a beautiful place with a big campground. I pitched my tent, Guy set up his hammock, and we ate our dinner on the stone & driftwood covered beach.

I woke up just before dawn on Sunday morning and wandered down to the beach. It was nice. Then Guy fell down a bank and met me on the beach for breakfast. It was pretty cold, but not cold enough to deter some backpackers from going swimming and taking pictures of each other. I wonder what the hashtags were? #nothypothermia? #shivveringissexy?

It was about 10am by the time we packed up and got on our bikes. There is a walking track that goes from Stony Bay to Fletcher Bay via a fairly flat route around the coast. There is also a designated mountain bike track that takes a different route (over the top of a 500m hill). There’s a DOC sign at the start of the walking track saying that people on bikes should take the MTB track. So we did.

The track started somewhat inauspiciously with a couple of rivers to ford. Then it went uphill a bit. Then it went uphill a lot. In fact it wasn’t long before the track was stretching ahead of us like a big clay ski jump.

Parts of it were as rideable as a ski jump too. So we walked. And rode, and walked. It was all very difficult. Finally we made it to the top, and stopped for something to eat. When we continued riding, it became clear that we were still some distance from the top. Which was very disappointing.

Finally we got to the real summit. Helluva view.

Descending to Fletcher Bay wasn’t quite as fun for me as it was for Guy. He immediately tore off downhill, brakes squeaking loudly enough for me to keep track of him (and frighten the sheep). While I went much more carefully, even (ahem) walking at times.

After a rest and (the previously related) conversation with the ranger in Fletcher Bay, we rode the remaining 60km to Coromandel Township.

The road along the coastline to Colville was lovely, one of the most spectacular rides I’ve ever been on.

The last 25km or so was hard – we were tired, it was cold, it was dark. Guy actually whooped when we arrived in Coromandel at about 7:30pm. Fair enough I thought.

Would I recommend this ride to other people? Not really. The section from Coromandel to Stony Bay was nice but hilly, the section from Fletcher Bay back to Coromandel was lovely. The mountain bike track from Stony Bay to Fletcher Bay? No, I wouldn’t do that again. Not with a bike. I reckon it would be nice to ride up the Western coast, camp at Fletcher Bay, walk over to Stony Bay and back. And then cycle back the same way. I might do that one day.

Route here

More pictures here

To Helensville & Back

03 Thursday Sep 2015

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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All-City, Auckland, cycle, Helensville, new zealand, Space Horse, touring

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of a good touring bike and a set of panniers, must be in want of a tour.” to paraphrase Jane Austen.

I don’t have much cycle touring experience. I’ve done a couple of overnight trips one 3 day tour, and I’m planning to do a 5 day ride soon. On all my rides to date, I had stayed in bricks & mortar accommodation. So I though it was time to try camping – it would save me some money, and give me more freedom to perhaps camp in other places should the need arise (like it did back in Omakau in February). It would also mean carrying more stuff.

I looked at various destinations around Auckland and chose Helensville. It’s only about 50km each way and there’s a camp ground (and a hot pool) in nearby Parakai. I was also somewhat familiar with the area having ridden the NW cycleway at least a million times, and out to Woodhill twice. The route was easy to plan, just ride all the way down the previously mentioned cycleway, through Swanson and then other people on The Internet had recommended taking the Old North Rd as a quieter alternative to highway 16.

When it came to packing the Space Horse on Sunday morning I was a little surprised to discover that my old sleeping bag weighed a thousand tonnes and took up an entire pannier. Must be the old-school insulation it contains (a mixture of mammoth hair and dodo feathers I believe). This excess weight was offset a little by my choice of svelte shelter – a Hennessey Hammock. Now I’d never actually slept in the hammock (despite owning it for a couple of years) so that was going to be interesting too.

The ride out to Swanson was nice, it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and the cycleway was looking different to the last time I rode it. I must ride out there about once every 3 weeks or so, and each time it changes. Sometimes it’s a new bridge, sometimes there’s a moved fence, other times a vast concrete flyover rising out of a swamp and across the sky, stopping abruptly in a tangle of steel rods hanging there like arteries in a severed limb.

Triangle Rd seemed to take forever to traverse and it was a relief to finally get “out in the country” in Taupaki. The roads and the scenery on the way to Helensville were nice enough, but there was too much traffic for me. Like I didn’t have the road to myself for more than 30 seconds at a stretch. I coasted down the last hill and then along a short stretch of highway to Parakai, in the middle of the afternoon.

I was the only one camping at the campground but there were a bunch of caravans, some of which looked pretty permanent. There were also quite a lot of cats around. I set up the hammock (all wrong). Then I set it up again (a bit better). Before darkness fell, I rode down to the (very friendly) Grand Hotel for a drink and after it got dark, I had a (very nice) dinner at The Curry Leaf restaurant. Full of food & drink I cycled back to Parakai and my hammock. Which turned out to be quite comfortable, except that getting in to a sleeping bag in a hammock is actually really hard. And don’t even ask about getting up in the middle of the night to pee.

When I woke up on Monday morning, I was surprised at how much traffic noise there was, but the mist over the estuary was quite beautiful, and I had a nice chat to a guy who was smoking a cigarette in between mowing lawns.

Riding back to Auckland was very much like the ride out there, but with more donkeys.

Route here

Is This Still a Holiday? Day 2

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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Cotic, Cycling, new zealand, Omakau, Otago, Roadrat, Thomson Gorge Rd, touring, Wanaka

I was awoken by what sounded like a hippo slipping over in the shower and falling down a flight of stairs, but when I peeped around my door a few minutes later, I couldn’t see any large animals or dents on the walls. Must have been something else. I was feeling pretty good, considering the fact that I RODE OVER SOME MOUNTAINS YESTERDAY, and I was keen to get going because today was likely to be quite hard – I was booked to stay tonight at the Omakau Hotel (about 100km away) and I would be following a route described in the Kennett Brothers book “Classic New Zealand Cycle Trails” as “adventurous”.

When I packed up the Off-Roadrat and started to push it down the driveway of the hostel where I’d spent the night, I noticed there was a rubbing sound coming from the rear of the bike. The rear wheel was slightly out of true. Fortunately, at the last minute when I was leaving Auckland, I had put a spoke key in my pocket – just in case. So I quickly trued the wheel and then rode off on the trails that would lead around the lake to Albert Town.
It was another beautiful day. I rode along a mountain bike trail that runs around the edge of Lake Wanaka and took me most of the way to Albert Town. I stopped at the dairy for a cup of coffee, but the coffee machine was broken (“again” apparently) so I had a nice cup of tea instead, sitting at a table outside watching a lot of nothing happening.

From there I rode down the road to the Clyde River trails. This took me (unsurprisingly) on a trail next to the Clyde River. It was, of course, lovely. The trail was good, the scenery spectacular and there were no people to spoil it. On the side of the trail about a quarter of the way along, I saw a dead hawk. It had it’s wings spread and it’s head to one side – it looked like a crashed, feathered aeroplane.

I saw a sign warning me of rabbit poison and “helicopter shooting”. I tried not to think about all the rabbits being silently poisoned all around me, and kept a look out for helicopters.

For lunch, I sat on a wooden bench donated by “The friends and family of Brian Thompson who loved this track.” I understand why – it’s a very scenic spot looking out over the river. I sat on Brian’s bench and ate left-over Indian food.

Eventually the trail ended and I continued along the highway, finding my way to, and then down the Luggate-Tarras Rd. This was fine to ride along – good surface and not much traffic. By the time I turned down Maori Point Rd I was starting to worry a bit about the amount of water I had brought along. I was getting thirsty and didn’t have much left to drink. Along that road were several vineyards with signs outside inviting passersby to come in and try their wine. I went in to a couple of these looking for water. But all I found were labradors.

It was at the end of Maori Point Rd that things went all wrong. I should have turned right on to the Tarras-Cromwell road and then left in to Ardgour Rd. Instead, I inexplicably turned left and blindly trundled off in the wrong direction. All this time I had a topo map sitting in front of me, under the transparent plastic on the top of my handlebar bag. I love topo maps. Not least because if you follow the curves and bends of the real road, on your map, it gives you the reassuring feeling that you’re going the right way. But I was starting to get the feeling I was going the wrong way. The map did not seem to match what I was seeing. Where was Ardgour Rd? And why did I keep seeing buses that said “Lindis Pass” on the front? Eventually I came to a tourist stop with a couple of shops, so I bought a few bottles of lemonade and asked if Thomsons Gorge Road was nearby. The directions I was given started with ‘go back the way you came’. So I rode back down the highway. After an hour or so, I started to get that feeling again. So I checked the map, I had gone right past the Ardgour Rd turnoff again and was heading toward Lake Dunstan. I couldn’t face going back again, but on the map I could see a shortcut. I just needed to ride down to a place called Bendigo, and then another road would take me across to meet Thomsons Gorge Rd, and save me retracing my steps again. OK.

Bendigo consisted of a dusty looking house and a sign put up by DOC describing the mining that used to go on there. I found the turn-off and rode (and then walked) up a really steep gravel road littered with used shotgun shells. Not a good start. From there it got worse. Sections of this “road” and been recently covered with deep coarse gravel that was almost impossible to ride on. There was another section that had been bisected with an electric fence and sheep were grazing on it. I lifted my bike over the first fence, but when I saw the incredibly steep hill just ahead, I gave up. Realising I would have to ride all the way back down this horrible road, through Bendigo, and back down the highway made me want to cry. But it seemed the sensible thing to do. So I did it.

Finally I made it to the elusive but perfectly nice-when-you-finally-get-there Ardgour Rd. This led through some pleasant countryside to a gate with a somewhat ominous sign next to it which read “Road Not Suitable for General Vehicles – Self Recovery Required”. I opened the gate and pushed my bike through. I was now on Thomsons Gorge Road. This led me through some amazing countryside, to the base of the Dunstan Range. And then the road started to go up. And then it continued to go up. At this point I started to worry a bit. I was only part (a quarter? a half?) of the way up and it was 4 in the afternoon. It seemed likely that it would get dark before I made it to Omakau. This wasn’t a total disaster – the Roadrat does have dynamo lights, so I would be able to see. But how was my clearly, kind of shit, navigation going to work in the dark? Would I even make it to Omakau?

I kept going. And it was hard, really hard. The road was steep and crappy, and I was really tired. I had to walk up the steepest bits. I also didn’t know where I was. The topo map showed so many bends that I was unable to work out where on the road I was. It was also getting cold. Eventually the sun went down and the wind came up.

I could still see the road in front of me, but I couldn’t read the map. I also had to keep stopping to open & close gates (the road crosses lots of land belonging to different people). At one point I was at an intersection wondering which fork to take, when I saw headlights coming towards me. It was a guy in a ute. I opened the gate for him and asked if I was on the right road to Omakau. He told me I was. I asked him how far away it was, he said “Oh, a wee way yet.” Yes, but how far? He thought maybe “10 or 15Ks?”. Then he drove off. I put on my puffy jacket & kept riding. By now the road was mostly heading down, which was lucky because I had almost run out of energy. I could only keep going by walking up the hills and pedalling gently on the flats & downhills. Then the road suddenly disappeared in front of me. So I stopped, wondering what the hell was going on. I walked forward a little and then lifted up the front wheel of my bike & spun it, so the light would come on. It seemed I had reached a river. I was confused – why would there be a river running across the road? Had I come the wrong way? I decided to keep going but to walk, pushing my bike in case the water was deep. It wasn’t deep, just cold. When I crossed the river a second time later on, I kept riding through it.

Finally I spotted a light in front of me, I rode towards it thinking it was a farmhouse – was it too late to knock on the door and ask for help? Then I got closer and realised it was just my light reflecting off another gate. I kept riding. Gradually I started to see real lights in the distance, the lights of a town perhaps? Maybe I was going to make it. The road levelled out, and then became sealed! I must be through the mountains! I got to an intersection with a sign – Railway Rd straight ahead. I remembered this from the map – Railway Rd leads straight in to Omakau – I was nearly there. The flat sealed road was luxurious to ride along, I felt a surge of energy and pedalled harder, maybe I would make it to the hotel before it closed. Omakau was promisingly quiet when I arrived. I found the hotel, and it was closed. I checked the time – it was 11:20pm. Oh. I knocked on the door a few times, but no one came. So I walked around the streets a bit to see if anything was open. Nothing. I was getting cold, and I was exhausted. So I walked back to the porch of the Omakau Hotel, put on my warmest clothes, and went to sleep on a bench outside.
Route here.

Is this still a holiday? Day 1

27 Saturday Dec 2014

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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Arrowtown, Cotic, Cycling, new zealand, Queenstown, Roadrat, touring, Wanaka

I don’t know about you, but I always take a book with me on holiday. They are an excellent companion – providing entertainment, distraction, a very small pillow, and can help you start a fire. For my “holiday” in Central Otago, I was all set to take David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten. But the night before I left, I changed my mind and packed Cheryl Strayed’s Wild instead. I thought it might suit the journey better – her thousand mile walk along the Pacific Coast Trail could perhaps echo my significantly shorter, but still slightly ambitious plan to cycle from Queenstown to Dunedin in four days. But when I started reading it, sitting in a plane, which was sitting on the Auckland airport runway waiting to take off, the book seemed like it might be a poor choice. It started with the traumatic account of Ms Strayed’s mother dying. As we lifted through the clouds to that beautiful other world above, our heroine started taking heroin recreationally.

My flight from Auckland to Christchurch was uneventful, my flight from Christchurch to Queenstown was spectacular. The weather was clear and the scenery beautiful. Cheryl was still having a bad time though – she was plagued by disturbingly real dreams in which she was repeatedly killing her mother. So I put the book down, looked out the window and tried to work out where I would be riding.

The weather was still lovely when we landed in Queenstown. I collected the Off-Roadrat from the oversize-bag area, where there was a sign directing me to a ‘Bike Assembly Point’ outside. So I followed the directions out there and found a proper(!) Park-Tools workshop stand, free for anyone to use. Brilliant. It was a particular treat for someone who does most of their repairs to bicycles that are leaning against the wall of the garage or lifted off the ground by some crappy assembly of F-clamps and rags. Local (or perhaps visiting) smokers had also been using the stand as an ash-tray. The ‘Rat was looking a little different from when it was last on an aeroplane – it was wearing a rear rack, with panniers. And I had replaced the somewhat worn Rock & Road tyres with a set of Clement MSO’s, that I thought might perform better on the significant amount of tarmac I would be riding on.

With the my bike reassembled, I rode off from the terminal searching for the nearest trail. It took all of 5 minutes to find one that took me almost all the way to Arrowtown, almost completely offroad.

Those trails around Queenstown are really excellent. I would have been happy to spend a couple of days exploring them, but I had to get on – I was booked to stay in Wanaka that night, which meant I had the Crown Range to ride over. I got talking to another cyclist on one of the trails when I held a gate open for him. I told him where I was intending to ride – airport to Arrowtown, the Tobin Track that runs up the hill behind Arrowtown, over the Crown Range, and then on to Wanaka.

He was skeptical that the Roadrat and I would be able to ride up the Tobin Track. But in my experience, guys on mountain bikes always think that non-mountain bikes can’t do anything except ride on roads. So I ignored his advice, but I did follow his suggestion to take a detour to visit the Edgar Bridge. Which was indeed worth going to see.

I arrived in Arrowtown mid-afternoon, bought some water, found the Tobin Track and rode up it. The Track was pretty steep (and a surprising number of people choose to drive their 4WDs up and down it on a Sunday afternoon). So I dropped all the way down to my granny gear and trundled up, stopping every now and then to get my breath back and not have a heart attack. At the top, I stopped for a proper rest and spoke to a local couple. They told me to be sure and turn right at the next intersection, which would lead me to the main highway. Turning left would apparently take me to Shania Twain’s house. A disturbing prospect indeed.

I followed their directions and made it to The Crown Range road. I read later that riding over the Crown Range is considered to be the third hardest hill climb in NZ. It’s probably good that I didn’t read that before I organised the trip. It. Was. Hard. One nice feature of the road, is that it’s equipped with “chain bays” – areas designed for people into pull over and put chains on their cars. If you are a cyclist you can use them to stand around pretending to take photographs while trying not to collapse. Or so I hear.

At the top, I stopped to admire the view, but instead of sitting down, I had to stand in a weird half-crouching position to stop my legs cramping. I was able to stand up straight after a few minutes, just in time to chat to another guy on a mountain bike, who was going the other way. Coasting down the other side (for 30km!) wasn’t as much fun as I had anticipated – despite stopping to put extra layers of clothes on, I was freezing the whole way and couldn’t get comfortable on the handlebars.

I arrived in Wanaka just as it was getting dark and spent quite a long time standing in a shower at the backpackers where I was staying, defrosting ,before having a very nice dinner at a local Indian restaurant and then crawling in to bed.

Route here.

Riding to Raglan (again)

02 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by Mr Slob in Riding

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Tags

Cycling, new zealand, Peugeot, Pukekohe, Raglan, touring

When I mentally filed away the story of my first ride ride from Pukekohe to Raglan (and back) it was pretty straightforward. There was a simple arc to the story. In the memory I constructed, I was a hero – a tragically incompetent and poorly prepared rider, who suffers heroically before returning triumphant. I spent at least a couple of weeks afterward feeling different, a better person. I was a guy who could ride 250km in 2 days. Alone, without a map (and pretty much without a clue) on the open road.

Six months later I was feeling more experienced, fitter, and housebound. Coup had been doing lots of travelling – around NZ for Team New Zealand trainings, and to Australia for The Great Southern Slam while I stayed home. How about another ride to Raglan I thought? I’ll take a different route and a different bike, I won’t make the same mistakes, I’ll do it better, faster even.

The route was mostly copied from The Kennets book again – they describe it as an alternative route, an “interesting ride”. I bought all the necessary NZ topo maps to cover Tuakau to Raglan, and marked the route on them with a pink highlighter.

I left on a Monday morning train to Pukekohe. The feeling that I was escaping the city was reinforced by the way the train seemed to make it’s way through the ugliest parts of Auckland. The route alternated between droning motorways, sad backyards and industrial wastelands. Half demolished abattoirs followed acres of blank warehouses. Torn curtains looked out on overgrown lawns littered with broken toys. The only nice landmark was the guide dog training centre in Manurewa.

The first section of the ride, from Pukekohe, through Tuakau and across the bridge over the Waikato river, was ok. Then instead of heading straight up highway 22, I turned left and took some gravel roads – kind of a back way to Pukekawa. At the top of the hill I turned left and headed east towards the river, past the place where The Dukes of Hazard have retired to. It appears they are now silver nomads living in a bus handy to the golf course.

The weather was cold, still and overcast and the roads were very quiet. There were more animals than people around. Which is pretty much how I like it. Horses, donkeys, goats, turkeys (an enormous flock of turkeys in fact) and of course lots of cows & sheep. This turned out to be my favourite section of the ride. I saw a guy standing, staring in to a bonfire. He saw me and waved, he said “We keep pretty busy around here.” and laughed. “Indeed” I replied, because that’s what I always say when I don’t have anything to say.

The roads got busier around the Rotowaro open cast mine. But it was still an interesting land mark I suppose. From the mine I rode west, through the hills. Past Glen Afton and the Waingaro Springs. Then I met highway 22, the route I had taken before. In my head it was a short ride, mostly downhill to Raglan from there. It’s not of course, it’s another 25km of mostly scenic rolling terrain, but they passed pleasantly. It had started to rain on and off by this point, but nothing too serious, and I arrived in Raglan tired but not exhausted, and with spare food and water.

I watched World Cup highlights at the hotel in Raglan. Ate pizza, drank some beer and read The Book Thief for an hour before falling asleep.

The next day, I took the same route back to Pukekohe. The weather was windier and rainier. On the Ohautira Road I saw several animal carcasses that had been picked clean. I wondered if this was the work of carrion eating birds. Or Bear Grylls.

People often talk about one of the pleasures of cycle touring is that you have a closer relationship with your surroundings – you feel the hills, smell the trees, listen to the magpies. That’s true – but it’s not all good – you also see more clearly the rubbish that people drop. And not just the few bits flung out of car windows as they drive by. You see the big piles that people have driven out in to the country to specifically dump down banks and in to rivers. I hate those people.

I arrived safely back at the Pukekohe railway station on Tuesday afternoon with a really sore arse but without a sense of achievement and it’s bothering me ever since. The sore arse I can take care of – I walked to work for the rest of the week instead of riding, and I’ve retired my ancient Brooks saddle. But I’m having trouble working out how to file away the memory.