All posts by bpheasant

family, history, NZ, roadtrip, travel

A little family road-trip to the start

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When I first hatched this plan to ride the inaugural Tour Aotearoa, Dad immediately volunteered to drive me to the start at the very top of the country. Not only that, he also offered to pick me up at the end – should I get there. This was a tremendous help as it took a lot of the planning out from the get-go.

It just so happened that I went and moved far away from my parents – all the way to Napier in the North Island. Nonplussed, Mum & Dad flew north and turned up at my house a few days before we set off on a good Pheasant roadtrip to far-flung parts of the country – wasn’t quite like childhood, as I had a bike next to me in the car not a sister.

We took it pretty easy heading north – as I was in Wave Two of the starters, I didn’t have to line up until Tuesday. So we spent three days making our way the seven-hundred-odd kilometres north visiting family and friends along the way. The highlight was definitely the visit to Matakohe – a place we’ve been many times before. Where the Pheasants settled way back when, there is a little bit of family stuff in the comprehensive and very well-done Kauri Museum. But this time I’d arranged a visit to a much smaller historic building.

Fortunately, David & Sherry were going to be in their small house the weekend we were traveling north. It just so happens that they had rescued their house forty years ago from its fate as a hay barn and faithfully restored it. This house was the house of my great-grandfather at the turn of the previous century and was where my grandfather and his siblings grew up, until the family moved south to Auckland for better educational opportunities. I was thrilled to be able to arrange the visit as Dad had never been inside the house, only looked in the windows.

It was a special visit discussing family history, how my great-aunt helped with the restoration details thanks to an extremely detailed memory, talking of the restoration in general, looking around the house in detail and roaming the grounds trying to imagine what it was like growing up on the edge of the Kaipara Harbour over a hundred years ago. Thanks to David & Sherry for having us – & doing such a thorough and incredible job of saving a bit, probably the biggest bit, of Pheasant family history around. Dad & I managed a walk down to where the wharf used to be – boats from here would have been the main connection with Auckland (boat to Helensville, then train to Auckland).

Leaving Matakohe, thoughts begin to turn more to just what I was about to embark on. This was probably brought on by driving north through, & stopping to buy riding food in, Dargaville – I could see some of the terrain I’d be riding through, up & over in but a few days’ time. At our accommodation in Kaitaia, the bike was pulled from the car and the final pack for 3000 km of adventure was completed with no drama. Ride time!

around home, bikepacking, bikes, GPS, NZ

Bikepacking to Everett’s Campsite via Darkys Spur

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After the success of the last bikepacking trip through Waikaremoana to Rotorua, Steve was easily persuaded to join me on a smaller trip closer to home. I’d been studying the topo map of the hills behind work, of which I’d ridden into a little way, and thought I could string a good overnighter together – camping at a DOC campsite on the Mohaka River. A fine sunny weekend was forecast, the only possible problem there being the thirty-plus temperatures.

Saturday morning was spent doing chores and shopping for food. So, it wasn’t until after one o’clock we set off north from Napier. The ride around the coast was as stunning as ever – even though it’s the way I ride to work often, it felt quite different on the weekend with a loaded bike heading off on an adventure.

All smiles at the prospect of exploring somewhere new – Steve has now perfected the riding selfie, no thumbs in this one.

Up Waipunga Road, we were headed for gravel roads that I had at least pedalled over previously. The heat wasn’t unbearable with a bit of motion-induced breeze, but definitely it was hot. Reaching the end of Waipunga Road, we were atop Darkys Spur and ready to zoom down to Waikoau. I insisted we stop a couple of times on the way down to take in the view of the hills and the gravel road winding its way down to the valley floor. Looking at that inviting topo map, I think there are more, smaller, adventures to be had exploring around here.

Passing through the unexpected and decidedly odd ex-Railways village of Waikoau, we were back on sealed road heading down the valley to the Wairoa road. There we knew was the Tutira Store – our last chance to refuel. It was stupidly hot in the store – which went someway to explaining why the woman behind the counter was so grumpy when we asked to fill water bottles, after buying delicious ice creams. I was not surprised to see a For Sale sign up – looking after customers was not a talent on display. We filled our water bottles at the charming little school over the road and headed north-east & inland.

I hadn’t realised there were so many walking tracks and other things to see up this seemingly innocuous country road. Forced to stop at Opouahi Scenic Reserve to wait for a mob of lambs to be herded down the road, we found a nice little lake surrounded by bush and a kiwi (the bird, not the fruit) creche – for which our company seems to be the naming sponsor, who knew?

While we waited we could look back over the valley we’d just ridden down to Darkys Spur – you can just see the cutting for the road heading down and right from the centre of the ridge.

To my surprise, I got closer to the lake than Steve – he didn’t have a swim at all during our ride. (c.f. the three of the last trip)

Just a NZ backcountry traffic jam.

The steady climbing on the well-surfaced gravel road continued as we started to ride through more bush than farmland. Interesting rocky outcrops started to appear on the small bluffs. We avoided being accidentally shot by a farmer out hunting rabbits as dusk settled in.

I didn’t know these signs actually existed – I have a small plastic version that someone (Adele) sent me while I was overseas, I suspect to make me homesick.

There were yet more trailheads to pass – I must come back one day when I’ve run out of places to ride and check out some of the hiking trails. Reaching our highest point for the day, about 800 m above seal level, the views opened up to the north.  In the early evening light I’d really been enjoying the climb and this just topped it off.  We could see a long way north. I checked my GPS’s list of “cities” nearby – we were only forty kilometres from Tuai, a village we rode through on the Waikaremoana trip!  Sometimes I’m surprised by the distance one can cover on a bike with minimal effort – or maybe, it’s just NZ really is quite small.

I’d enjoyed seeing many different uses of the land on this ride so close to the city. Now we were definitely heading into plantation forest.

We reached our northern-most point on the route and turned onto Waitara Road – obviously a haul road for logging trucks, it was the widest gravel road I’ve seen in a long time. We were hauling too down there as we lost a lot of altitude. Unfortunately, after so many hours in the heat there were a few not-insubstantial climbs to surmount before we finally got to the turnoff to the campsite. But the climbing was not over quite yet – eventually, we rolled down the final descent just before eight o’clock.

For an isolated campsite inaccessible to motorhomes, campervans and small cars – it was pretty busy. There was enough daylight left to make camp, head down to the Mohaka to cool and wash off the day’s dust and sunscreen, clean up some severe food leakage in my cooking set and make a well-earned dinner. A warm night with a big moon, it was plenty bright. Steve had no qualms in settling for the bivy bag, while I took my little tent. All slept well as it turned out we’d done more climbing in significantly less distance than the Waikaremoana trip – I wasn’t expecting that.

I think I even made the outrageous claim that I enjoyed that day’s riding more than the Waikaremoana trip – & that was fantastic. Perhaps it was just the living-in-the-moment thing that made it seem so good. But after a couple of days, it still seems that good – maybe because it was a route made up just to go & see what was out there and not one I’d got out of a book. Anyway, I’ll stop trying to rationalise it – it was an excellent afternoon of bikepacking finding new places so close to home.

However, due to leaving it too late in being persuaded in trying to get permission (from a forest owner and a farmer) to access an alternative, more interesting and lower-traffic route home, Sunday was only good without being exceptional. Still, I can’t complain about being out on a bike in the sun – I’ll just have to do the trip again (which I’d be more than happy to do) and organise the land access earlier to make the return to Napier more enjoyable.

Sunday morning continued on gravel with a fair climb up from the river to get us going. Soon we were back on the sealed road and came across the more accessible Glenfalls Campsite – it was very popular, I remember now that it is still school holidays. Our morning got a little more social as first we chatted with a Canadian cycle-tourist (who’d braved the length of the Napier-Taupo, which I’m not keen on doing) and then dropped in to visit someone from work – who just happened to live at the turn-off to the forest I want to ride through next time.

Glenfalls looks a popular place to camp.

From there, it was on the highway for twenty-five kilometres – consisting of one big climb and then a long descent towards the coast. The Sunday morning traffic wasn’t too bad and I pootled up the hill OK. We turned off to take backroads back to the city – we found out we missed a four-car pile-up near this intersection by half an hour, it closed the road. Thankfully the diverted traffic never caught up to us on these smaller roads as we rolled into Napier happy campers (quite literally).

It didn’t take long before my eyes turned back to the local topo maps to start planning more loops in the hills – so much to explore when you live somewhere new!

bikepacking, bikes, engineering, GPS, national park, NZ

Bikepacking Waikaremoana – Wairoa to Rotorua

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The possibility of riding between home (Napier) and Rotorua had been mentioned a couple of times at work by Steve and me. While not initially put off by the idea, the thought of doing over two-hundred kilometres of highway (the start hilly and quite narrow) in one day rather discouraged me. Then a cycle-tourist who stayed the night carried on north to Wairoa and then rode the Waikaremoana highway. This is a highway in the loosest sense of the word – winding its way through the rugged and remote Te Urewera National Park, it is mostly gravel, sees little traffic and there are few settlements along the way. It is, however, yet another beautiful part of the country.

Convinced of the brilliance of a two-day bikepacking trip through the area, I just had to bring Steve around to the idea of a lot of unsealed-road riding. Although he’d never been bikepacking or cycle-touring, it wasn’t hard to get Steve onboard with the promise of a big, new type of adventure. A representative triathlete, I was a bit worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up with Steve as he’s one of those people who is so unbelievably active, it’s tiring just thinking about it; also, with Steve’s sizeable dose of Fear-of-Missing-Out I shouldn’t have been surprised he was a surefire starter-for-ten for my mad (the general consensus around the office as our plans leaked out) idea.

Unfortunately, we didn’t even got to Wairoa on our first attempt as I, unusually, got ill just in time for New Year’s weekend. This worked out well, as the weather turned horrid over much of the North Island that long-weekend – I was glad not to be out riding in such weather and sleeping in a tent. All the details worked out well for a repeat attempt the following weekend, so off we set for Wairoa early that Saturday morning. Delightfully, the fabled Osler’s Bakery was just opening as we drove into town – steak and mushroom pies are OK at eight o’clock in the morning for second breakfast, aren’t they? It was already 24ºC as we emptied the car and got our bikes and luggage sorted. It was clearly going to be a hot day, but we had all day to do 120-odd kilometres and the breeze blowing into us wasn’t too strong as we headed north over the Wairoa River and turned inland.

It was all rather flat for quite a while as we went up the broad river valley.

I was pleased to find classic Tip Top ice cream and Fanta advertisements on the side of a long-since-closed corner store in Frasertown.

I’m sure this sign is to warn off inexperienced gravel-road drivers and people who expect state highways in NZ to be up to a much higher standard than some (read: most) of them are. For the bikepacker, this serves to add to the anticipation for lightweight travel through remote places; I was well pleased to see this sign.

It was still all smiles as we had plenty of practice taking photos while riding along. This a particularly good one of Steven’s thumb, and for a change I make a photographic appearance in my own blog.

The sealed road ended after about thirty kilometres, but the climbing up to Lake Waikaremoana didn’t start in earnest for another fifteen or so. Another advantage of not doing this trip the previous weekend, was a lack of public-holiday traffic. That being said, there was a fair few people returning from the lake with boats and caravans at the end of their holidays. But the surface was good and we never had a problem with the traffic. Even the persistent norwester wasn’t too much of a hindrance on such a fine day – it had more of a cooling effect than a slowing one.

Taking a slight detour off the highway, we began a little side-tour; that of the Waikaremoana Hydro Power Scheme. This the lowest of three small power stations linked together, all using water flowing from the Lake Waikaremoana.

Riding across the dam of the hydro lake at Tuai – the power station in the distance. Most of our riding was now surrounded by either water or vast expanses of native bush.

First swim stop of the day for Steve.

As is quite common, a small town (large village, really) was to be found near this hydro power scheme. This one, Tuai, obviously built for the construction of the dams & powerhouses and still looking in really good condition. Just a representative house that I happened to snap while riding past.

We rejoined the highway and the climbing continued, but never steeply. Here we look back down to Tuai.

We lost a bit of altitude taking another detour to the third power station, Kaitawa. These penstocks bring water down from Lake Waikaremoana after it’s travelled through a tunnel. It was at this point Steve suggested we should ride up there as a shortcut; I suggested he go jump in the lake while I had first-lunch.

A rather reflective sign about the power scheme: in case anyone still cares and so I can stop banging on about it so much.

Quite picturesque really, despite the infrastructure. We set off on a short walk around the lake, but it never opened up and gave us good access to or views of the lake. So we turned back.

Steve did take that second swim, while I enjoyed my bacon & egg pie from Osler’s. Only when he tried to get out of the tailrace, did Steve realise the walls were really quite high.

We did make it up the access road beside the penstocks – it did save a bit of backtracking distance and in our granny gears the 20+% gradient was OK.

After that steep climb, we were pretty much at lake (Waikaremoana) level after about five hours and sixty kilometres. From there it was undulating for seven kilometres around the lake edge to Home Bay and second-lunch. You may have noticed a bit of a theme here: not travelling solo meant taking a large tent, which somehow Steve ended up with (still didn’t really help me to tire him out). Which in turn meant I had a lot more room on my bike to carry delicious, and necessary, food.

Finally, more of Panekire Bluffs came into view – much as I remember them from my last visit to the area to do the three-day hike around the lake with Adele.

Once again it proved impossible to keep Steve out of the water – just a swim across Home Bay & back this time, about a mile. I sat under a tree and enjoyed the $80/kg pastrami from the store at the campground.

Following the north edge of the lake on pretty flat road (now with even less traffic than not-much), I was confident that we would easily make the saddle and highest point on the route well before we’d had enough for the day or run out of daylight.

When we rode over the bridge atop Mokau Falls, we didn’t even realise they were there – let alone, that they looked like this.

This was our final view of Panekire Bluffs, perhaps the best yet.

Heading away from the lake towards the saddle, it was a gradual climb up a gentle valley shaded by the dense bush on our left. Crossing from Hawkes Bay to Bay of Plenty it wasn’t long until the summit. While the route was an awful long gravel road, it was interspersed with short stretches of seal – mostly around settlements and on any steep hills. Over the saddle I was pleased that the steep descent was sealed – my cross tyres proving a bit sketchy on anything too loose and fast.

We’d heard much of wild horses all over the road once over the saddle. Here, our first sighting; also memorable as just past all those cars was our first being-chased-by-a-fierce-dog experience of the trip (something else we’d also be warned about).

We took the opportunity to fill water bottles at a derelict motel in Ruatahuna – I haven’t got sick yet – before a few kilometres up to where there was supposed to be a campground. At least I was hoping so, details were elusive online – I think it was once a DOC campsite, but no longer. Anyway, it was there with a picnic table, plenty of space, a toilet, the Whakatane River in its infancy and masses of persistent sandflies (a bit like Scottish midges, small bitey insects that attack by stealth [unlike mosquitoes]). Steve made camp and just for a change from lakes, got in the river for his fourth swim of the day while I whistled up the culinary delights that are freeze-dried meals.

What a fantastic day’s riding – great route, excellent scenery, lovely summer weather, plenty of food, good adventuring company and even a bit of engineering history. Well pleased and well worth the effort.

Our set-up for the evening, I probably should have been not still sitting down.

We even had blue ducks visit our campsite! An endangered species native to NZ, they feature on our ten dollar note/bill and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before. Fortuitously, we didn’t even have to go searching for them, as they can be hard to find (obviously, they’re endangered & therefore rare) – they came to us.

A few of the locals dropped in for an evening graze.

After a warm, surprisingly restless night considering the previous day’s efforts it was a leisurely start to the day. Fueled up on porridge and many other snacks (jerky for breakfast? – if you’re going to carry excess food, you may as well eat it) we were on our way. The morning had cooled a fair bit and it was slightly cloudy too – just as well we started with an easy climb to warm us up again. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere, we came across a fair few people just walking along the otherwise deserted road. Rather odd, until we got to a rather small settlement with a marae.

Our gentle climb to start the day, just kept on going and turned out to take us to the highest point of the day – we were done with it within an hour and the road turned back to seal (mostly) for the screaming descent to the Minginui turn-off. And that was the gravel road riding done for the day – things weren’t quite so interesting as we got out of the remoter areas. Actually, things started to look vaguely familiar. When Dad was a dairy management consultant in the Bay in the ’90s, this area was on the outer edges of one of his patches. So when we stopped to talk to local roadies on their Sunday morning rides (not a cafe stop in sight out here), I recognised a fair few place names.

The steelwork of destroyed picnic tables makes for great bike-stands; here at the highest point of the second day – looking back over the Ureweras.

We stopped at this old service station shortly before Murupara to fill water bottles – we’d been warned about the dogs in town, so avoided that.

From Murupara it was a twelve or so kilometre climb up through boring plantation forest with fast-moving traffic into the wind. Definitely not with the pleasure of the previous day’s riding. Still, the closer we got to Rotorua the more familiar things seemed. We started passing places I remember from my first bike tour twenty years ago (crikey) – a school holiday camp.

It was strange seeing Mt Tarawera looming up from a different angle – but all the same, there it was.

We turned off the highway just before Rainbow Mountain and joined the Te Ara Ahi for our final stretch to Rotorua and Steve’s car. Stopping at Lake Okaro (a rather nice little lake I didn’t even know was there – there are many lakes in the area) to finish off the food for lunch, I was surprised that Steve didn’t have a swim. There’s a slim chance he was getting a little tired, but I think it unlikely. Heading west from Waimangu, we bore the brunt of a vigourous westerly – it was awful. But then the cycle trial turned for twenty kilometres of downhill to town – the wind didn’t matter so much then. I don’t recommend that cycle trail – it’s basically a concrete path right next to the highway: dead boring and quite horrible.

At least it was an easy finish to a most excellent adventure – with a bit of luck I’ve opened Steve’s eyes to the possibilities of exploring all sorts of places by bike. We got to Steve’s parents’ place, cleaned up, ate a bit more and filled the car.  Somehow we fitted in three bikes, all our touring luggage, some Christmas presents, two collapsible workshop benches and countless tools.

bikes, family, NZ, vehicles

Cape Palliser – Bottom of the North Island

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With not a lot planned for Christmas (mainly due to not having enough spare annual leave to make the trip south worthwhile), I was pleased to get an invite to my uncle & aunt’s down in Martinborough. My cousins were also due to be there from Wellington & Sydney it was a great opportunity for catching up with all – especially to see Sasha & Blair who have had two sons since I last saw them (they left London & returned to NZ around the time I moved to Canada in 2010, I think).

After a day or two of festivities, warm sunshine, relaxing and generally having a good time I was itching for a little bike ride. Funnily enough, I’d come prepared with a bike in the car and a route in mind. In the depths of my mind I knew Cape Palliser was the southern-most point of the North Island, but I’d never had any reason to go there – until the day after Boxing Day.

Trying to beat the heat, I set off before the rest of the house was up – the road towards the coast is pretty straight and flat so the going was easy with a light tail breeze. Hitting the coast about two hours in and over the only hill worth mentioning on the whole ride, the breeze was different – a cooling, but hindering, southerly. As I expected, from my ride around the coast a little further west earlier in the year (Bikepacking from Wellington to Martinborough), the coast was reasonably rugged here too. But on such a nice day, remarkably beautiful too.

This memorial testified as to how dangerous this coast could be for passing ships.

Like that previous ride, I expected this remote stretch of coast to be pretty deserted. But there were many more genuine Kiwi baches down here than I expected. Being prime holiday season, this meant there was more traffic on the road than is almost certainly normal – but not enough to be a problem. Pleasingly in amongst the baches (a bach being Kiwi slang for a small holiday house – traditionally quite small and cobbled together at low cost) I struggled to spot any pretentious holiday homes; the one or two newer houses I saw blended in pretty well.

Also, there was less gravel road than I thought – only the last seven kilometres past Ngawi to the cape. Of course, rounding the cape the headwind strengthened – and the gravel was quite corrugated, annoyingly so as the speed I was capable of into the wind seemed to match the frequency of the corrugations in a most horrible way. Nonetheless, I was at the bottom of the island for the first time – in about the three hours I expected. Such a rocky promontory, of course, deserves a lighthouse.

My legs were thrilled to find that the beacon was at the top of the longest straight staircase I’m pretty sure I’ve ever seen – 254 steps straight up. Still, I didn’t ride all this way to not get the view – so I clip-clopped up in my bike shoes.

Ngawi seems to be where bulldozers come to retire to a life of occasionally launching small fishing boats out to see on large cradles – & then retrieving them later, one presumes. There were dozens of them in various states of repair. It was all rather curious.

Apparently, this one would be called Byron; I’m a little glad that I had to look that up.

At least going back on the gravel road the wind was at my back – so the bumps in the gravel were less noticeable. As I left the stunning coast, the wind was back to the nor-easter coming down the valley – which managed to sap most of my energy five kilometres from home. Pleased with a nice six hours on the bike finding yet another part of NZ I’ve not been to before.

After refuelling and cleaning up a bit, we popped down for a drink on the square in the centre of town. Looking quite of place (I suppose they/we usually do), three fully loaded bikepackers rolled in and stopped at the adjacent cafe (on Surly Krampii if anyone is interested). I couldn’t resist going & chatting to them – they were nearing the end of a week-long reconnaissance of the lower half of the North Island part of the Tour Aotearoa route. So it was interesting to hear of the beauty of the ride I hope I’m doing in two months’ time.

With (cousin) Chris having to get an early train the following morning to start the journey back to Sydney and the considerable amount of catering Antoinette & David had done the previous days, it was somewhat appropriate that we went out for a delicious Thai meal that night. That is because I figure the last time I had Christmas with my cousins was when David was a diplomat in Thailand and we went over for a Christmas-time visit. A bit of rather irrelevant Pheasant history there; hopefully it’s not so long between drinks (Christmases) next time – as I really enjoyed my weekend away. Although, I hear there’s a family wedding next year – so that should be fun.

Unfortunately, this weekend’s bikepacking adventures were put on ice as the New Year’s weather forecast was horrendous up towards Rotorua and I’ve been unusually ill – which is rather tedious, but hopefully next weekend works out.