Category Archives: bikes

around home, bikes, family, house, NZ

Where does the time go?

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Naturally, now that I’ve moved into my own house leisure time is much reduced. But the busiest period, moving-in and setting up a home from basically scratch, is over and summer is all but here – so looking forward to getting out a bit more.

There was a bit of a lull in house activities between sorting the purchase out and settlement date, so I tried to make the most of that.

My bike fleet slowly grows – this one a town bike for doing the shopping and various other errands. It will also get put into service during the annual Art Deco Festival.

I savoured the view many a time from the window seat of the house I was boarding in – I can’t afford such a view, so it was worth taking the time to so.

Finally, I got further into exploring the hills in the distance of the picture two above. I was particularly pleased to find a decent length of gravel roads – I’d been led to believe there were few around. This picture looking towards the Kawekas.

I combined a work trip away in Rotorua with a weekend around the Bay of Plenty visiting various people and places from my time growing up there. Great to do so, especially seeing how much it’s changed around the orchard I spent the first eight or so years of my life on. For the first time since we left, I took the opportunity of having a good look around the property (it’s been subdivided a few times by now) and our old house. Fairly nostalgic.

The shed on the orchard that was my first home. Our family quickly outgrew it when Adele was on the way. (It may be about to fall over and sink into the swamp.)

The only picture that I snapped of the family home that Mum & Dad designed and had built once Adele arrived. It’s changed a fair bit in superficial ways, but still brought back plenty of memories.

I was definitely pleased to get back to Hawkes Bay, strangely a few hours of traveling didn’t really appeal. I may have just been quite anxious to get into my house. But there was still a long weekend before I got the keys and a mortgage. So a shorter trip away to Palmerston North was in order to catch up properly with friends from my years at university – yes, some people still live there! The streets are plenty wide I suppose. It was good to get out on the bike, as well as doing a bit of secondhand shopping for the house.

I went on a brilliant few hours’ ride reconnoitering the Pohangina Valley for next March.

Settlement day finally rolled around and there started much cleaning, packing of the things, moving all the things, buying the other things and a lot of work. It was, and still is, exciting to have my own home and set it up as I want – even if it is an awful lot of work by oneself (I did have generous help moving the bigger items), it’s very much worth it still.

At some stage, I escaped from house setting-up and Sunday morning fog and went and found some more gravel roads. This photo look back towards Napier and the fog.

And this one look west for a different angle on the Kawekas.

I was very excited to have my first house guests – finally after many years abusing others’ hospitality, I could start to repay my debts. Elizabeth and Nigel and family came up from Wellington on a little road-trip and all of a sudden I had five extra people in the house! That was a change, but we all coped – even with just one chair in the lounge (a suitable source of many jokes apparently); that may have been a factor in Elizabeth being keen in helping me to choose a lounge suite.

From Te Mata Peak looking north along the coast to Napier.

West from Te Mata Peak.

The visitors continued – Mum came up later that week and we had a great time doing a few things around the house and exploring little bits of Napier and around. I also had my first cycle tourist stay from warmshowers (like couch-surfing, but for cycle tourists) – so that was fun hearing about a big tour and sharing some of my less adventurous stories.

I finally found a correctly-sized secondhand road bike for sale locally. The fact that it’s steel and has some nice Italian componentry on it helps to lessen the horror of actually owning a road bike. It’s service is getting me to work, and back, five to ten minutes faster and a lot less tired than the Ogre. I tried to go for a road-ride one day, but cut that short as I was horribly bored by the ordeal and could think of many better uses of my time.

While Mum was here, we went on plenty of walks. This one, pictured, I finally walked the trail around the estuary (I’d not explored it before as bikes are not permitted). But my favourites were exploring Napier Hill from home – it’s so interesting with plenty of hidden stairways, a fantastic variety of houses and even a little bit of history.

Dad joined us for a week before he & Mum went home back to south. Unfortunately he wasn’t up to walking far, so couldn’t share as much in my keenness for walking around and up and down this end of the Hill. At least he managed to cope without a TV for a week – my library card finally got some use.

Last Saturday morning was pretty hot; I exhausted myself going further into the hills behind and north of work. Great country and good gravel road riding.

Now that November, the month of moving in and setting up the house is long-since over, I’m moving to work on the garden and house exterior – but hope to have plenty of time to get my fitness and endurance up to an acceptable level, with the help of a few consecutive days of riding here & there. We’ll see…

around home, bikes, family, NZ

Farewell South Island

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With the gradual erosion of my bank account balances, a suitable opportunity to rejoin the workforce was most welcome. As such, since I got the phone call offering me a job on the last day of the June sojourn to the West Coast, July was rather quiet as I sorted details and prepared for the move north. There definitely was not much biking as a rather frigid few weeks set in and I couldn’t get motivated to re-ride gravel roads that were no longer new to me. But there was plenty more to do and think about.

Having been back in NZ for eight months, it was bigger trips away that got more coverage here. Understandably too, as there were a fair few highlights there – mostly notable surviving the 2015 Kiwi Brevet (1150 km around the top of the South Island was a great re-introduction to NZ); the big training rides for the brevet; a couple of trips to the North Island with short bike tours, a fantastic wedding, and visiting family & friends; a quick trip to Sydney to see family; and two trips to Westport to see Adele in her new home (the Heaphy Trail was the highlight of the riding). But the time, between those trips, with Mum & Dad in their new home was just as good – plenty to do and many places to explore.

The local beach, a short distance from home, was always good for a walk in the, frequent, sun.

Waikouaiti Beach

Further around the beach towards to estuary mouth

Out on my twenty kilometre loop – looking out across Waikouaiti and Hawkesbury Lagoon and over the Pacific.

As I trained a little bit for the Brevet, my eyes turned to the myriad of gravel roads slightly inland. I was surprised by the quality of the gravel road riding out there – wonderful scenery and pretty much deserted too.

Out riding in the hills of coastal East Otago.

At the end of one of my favourite gravel roads to ride, a station – remove a letter and you can anagram my name.

Looking over Karitane village to Waikouaiti Beach.

There was even the odd local event to go along to, sit in the sun and drink wine at.

A day at the local races.

My twenty kilometre loop came over that saddle and was a great rush down that hill.

The facilities are looking a little long in the tooth.

Another recurring route on the bike was north to Palmerston, avoiding the highway, and then on past Trotters Gorge to Moeraki.

On one of the few trips to the fishing village of Moeraki – where there is a uncanningly fantastic restaurant, with plenty of seafood, naturally.

The decor is somewhat eclectic – this historic hand-drier reminding me of Polimeri (my workplace in the UK actually still had these!).

Now that Mum & Dad have a much bigger section there was always plenty to do around home – particularly outside. I went a little way towards earning my keep by washing the exterior of the house, repeatedly mowing the lawns, replacing paving stones, picking apples & pears, carting & stacking dry firewood, and finally by wielding a chainsaw an awful lot cutting trees down & into burnable pieces. The weather often played fair and it was always nice to be outside – even on those crisp days close to freezing.

It looks a little different now that winter has arrived and many of the trees have been dealt to by a chainsaw to let some more light in.

So a great few months at home spending time with Mum & Dad. Nice to have that time before I dive into seeing if I can get used to a life that will be more settled &, dare I say it, normal than the preceding six years. We’ll see.

bikes, family, friends, MTB, NZ

West Coast Weeks

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Now that June is over, my weeks based in Westport are also coming to an end – it’s been a nice change of scenery. While somewhat wet, it has definitely been a lot less cold than if I’d spent the month further south at Mum & Dad’s house. Adele’s also been pleased to have various visitors, besides me, as we all realise just how isolated Westport is. With people new to the area, there is always added incentive to go out and show them new places.

Craig, Kelly and their young daughter, Elsie, visiting for a weekend meant a trip out to Charming Creek – I finally got to ride the whole thing (it’s only ten kilometres each way) after being stopped by a large trail-covering waterfall last time. We didn’t even get rained on! But there was plenty of water standing on the trail to soak us. The river not being in a raging, flooded torrent was not quite as impressive – but it did mean I got to see the most-noteworthy waterfall as we followed the fallen-into-disrepair railway up the valley.

As with a lot of the coast, there were mining relics to explore. These at the top trailhead – where we turned around for a quick, fun and wet return to the cars.

The girls having been for a Sunday mountain-bike ride up at Denniston while we (mostly Craig, admittedly) watched over Elsie – the late afternoon was time for Craig to take James and me on an adventure quite different to those I normally write about (no bikes!). Half an hour south, a bit past Charleston, we turned off the highway and followed a narrow gravel track inland and up into the hills. Craig declared we had found the right place as we parked the car – what he’d seen I had no idea, one patch of native bush looks much like any other. With a bit of advice I managed to get into my harness – as climbing things generally bores me, it’s been many years since I’ve had to put one on.

Someone saw a slight parting in the foliage and we set off down a narrow path, hiding the car keys in a small hovel trailside as the steps got steeper and more slippery. Surprisingly, there was an official sign warning of a tomo – which as far as I could work out was a really big hole in the ground. The surprise being the sign in such an isolated place; the large cavity in the earth being rather the point and not at all suprising. I stood around in the increasingly heavy rain getting rather wet, wondering why I wasn’t somewhere warm reading a book by a fire, as Craig and James set-up various ropes and slings that would, all going well, prevent me falling forty-odd metres and making little impression, but a big mess, on the rocks below.

With little time to do more than accept the fact that I’d be lowering myself a long way down a cliff with only a slight theoretical, and no practical, understanding of the hows and whys – I found myself doing just that. With a wet, doubled-rope threading through my belay device, it turns out being rather small and featherweight [disturbingly – if I was a boxer, I would be a featherweight; also, I’d probably be the worst boxer ever] does slow things down if you’ve not got the technique sorted. Still, in such circumstances I much prefer slow and steady over fast, uncontrolled and dead. The waterfall beside me cascading into the giant hole with much greater certainty and confidence was doing a fine job of making everything very slippery and more difficult. Eventually my technique improved and I descended a bit faster; one strand of rope ran out (a sixty metre rope can’t be doubled all the way down a forty metre cliff) and I bounced a little as I passed that by.

Somewhat relieved to be standing on solid ground, rather than bouncing off the side of it, James made his down and soon we were caving! Some photos of all this would be useful, but it was so muddy and wet down there I left my camera safely at home. For a couple of hours we proceeded through quite a network of tunnels downhill. We followed the stream part of the way, marveling at the large stalagmites and stalactites (some were a good eight inches in diameter) and appreciating the rather dainty ones forming that were no thicker than drinking straws.

It was a lot warmer underground than we expected – the others shed a layer or two, while I gave up trying to keep my feet dry and just walked in the stream when it became too much like hard work to stay out of it. Hauling ourselves up small rockfaces, clambering over things and gingerly jumping off rocks into semi-darkness was, as Craig said a few times, a full-body workout. I felt my shoulders twinge a couple of times from exerting force at weird angles – a warning that I shouldn’t pursue caving more, I’d hate to be stuck underground with a dislocated shoulder.

Craig reckoned he’d been down here four or five times before and seemed to know where he was going as I blindly followed, every so often hearing words along the lines of “this is the right way”. Every so often we’d emerge from a narrow passage into a larger chamber. It was one such chamber that we started to return to repeatedly after Craig started to utter the words “this doesn’t feel right” a little too often. This started to become mildly alarming after what seemed like half an hour. I was not keen on having to get myself back up that slick tomo in the dark. Eventually we had success as one previously overlooked passage sent us on the right track; we crawled and hauled ourselves on our bellies down another shrinking tunnel.

With Craig convinced we were back on the route that would get us back above ground, we elected to take a small side-route. This first involved a ten-metre shuffle head-first under an extremely low ceiling. I’ve not found too many instance where lacking in upper-body strength is useful, and this wasn’t one – but it was a good time to be very skinny. The ceiling was so low that I had to turn my boots parallel to the floor – as if I had my Size 8’s perpendicular, they would quickly wedge between ceiling and floor. Emerging from that, we were in a deep, but narrow cleft, in the rock. Soon this narrow chasm had a stream running swiftly down it, showing just what had carved such a deep slit in the layer rock. The layers were pronounced, but smooth as we shuffled past. Hardly having wide hips, even I had to twist my body sideways to be able to walk forward.

That rather unusual journey over we reached the objective – sizeable whale bones fossilised in the rock many metres below ground, but now somewhat exposed by the rock having been worn away. Amazed, we studied these for some time before deciding we really should get going and returned through the narrow passageway to the main route. With more shuffling down a muddy creek bed, we were finally able to stand up again and clambered up a lot of rock. Suddenly, Craig spotted ferns in the dark ahead – we were outside again and it was much later than we thought. With no real path, we headed up the left bank of the Nile (not that one) before Craig spotted some small reflectors off to our right. Following these had us bush-bashing through dense bush back to the gravel road, ending our fantastic little adventure with a half-hour walk up the road in the rain to the car and retrieving the rope from the start.

Later the following week, after a flying trip Napier (where I tested out Sounds Air’s new nine-seater service, Westport to Wellington), Fiona, a family friend of ours from growing up in Te Puke, arrived for a few days at the end of her med. school holidays. Around Westport, we went for walks to Cape Foulwind to see the seals, explored small local bike trails and waited for fine spots between the frequent showers of rain. Further south, we visited the Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki. Finding that the gravel road we intended to follow inland was closed due to slips, we explored another short walk nearby.

The Truman Track starts on the side of the highway and follows an easy path through a wide variety of native trees, before the bush finally thins and you find yourself above a rather charming little bay. I enjoyed exploring the bay, and the next one too (avoiding being stranded by the incoming tide), looking at the various wear patterns in the mudstone – while James, the geologist he is, looked more closely at rocks on the beach and Fiona tried to escape sandfly attacks.

A most excellent stay visiting the coast – the highlight was definitely the Heaphy, both trips – there’s a lot to do and more left unexplored for next time. Thanks Adele & James!

bikepacking, bikes, MTB, national park, NZ

Double Heaphy

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Every so often it’s good to do something a little nuts just to push one’s limits and see if you can do it. Even before we’d finished our previous, somewhat curtailed by the weather, Heaphy attempt I was starting to consider the feasibility of riding the whole trail there and back over two days. As we’d ridden the western (approximate) half of the trail, I thought it was possible to ride that in about four hours with few stops – and that includes the only big climb when riding west to east.

With that in mind, completing the whole trail in a day should be possible while carrying overnight gear and enough food for two big days of riding. James was also up for this challenge – even if it would mean his two biggest days ever on a bike, all the while lugging quite a load. We just had to wait for two consecutive days which had fine weather forecast – two such days we discovered while away in Christchurch. So dashing back from the east coast on Monday, we had just enough time to buy enough food and organise ourselves before an early start on Tuesday.

The weather was definitely clear when we got up at five o’clock – it was the first frost I’ve seen around Westport, and a heavy one at that. We were at the trailhead just after first light to make the most of the daylight hours (you aren’t allowed to ride the trail at night). The morning gradually warmed, but not by much, as we made good time along the beautiful coastal section to Heaphy Hut. There was little time to take photos, so these from the last trip will have to do.

The section of river crossings to Lewis Hut took but half an hour and then the sustained climb to James McKay Hut, after which I’d pegged as a good time for lunch, was upon us. On our previous trip we’d been told of and seen the resting diggers of trail maintenance crews – we were hoping that they’d improved the trail a lot. The top section had been gravelled and was remarkably better and easier going; alas, the middle section was considerably worse having been churned up by the mini-diggers – there was considerable pushing through thick, gloopy and claggy mud. But we stayed on track and made James McKay for lunch.

This was a different view from the hut compared to last time – a lot less distant cloud and more snow.

We pushed on wondering if we’d be quick enough to get to the end of the trail and then return up the sixteen kilometre, eight hundred metre climb to Perry Saddle Hut for the night. While Brown Hut is at the east trailhead and would have been the best location to stay – other practicalities dictated we would stay at Perry Saddle Hut instead. Brown Hut is an older, smaller hut than Perry Saddle and does not have gas stoves and cooking equipment – things we didn’t really want to carry if we didn’t have to.

The section between James McKay and Perry Saddle was different again – there’s a little climbing, but it’s not too onerous as you mostly stay between six- and eight-hundred metres above sea-level. Through some rather pretty, but soggy, parts early on the trail is board-walked – which provides a nice change from hitting rocks often. Passing across the tussocky Gouland Downs was so much more open than most of the riding – we were glad for a lack of wind. There were a couple of small, swift rivers that we waded through as getting cold and wet feet seemed a lot less hassle and quicker than trying to get across wire swing bridges upstream that were not designed with bikes in mind.

The trail got very slick and quite large sections had standing water that was manageable, but constantly sprayed us with water. On the side of the trail were significant patches of frost and snow. The clay got even more slippery as we climbed up to the saddle (about 900 m) and started attaching itself to our bikes. The last few hundred metres up to the hut was very rough, but just rideable after a long day in the saddle. Getting to the hut just after half-past three, we thought it prudent to call it a day, as while we would have easily got down the last sixteen kilometres to the end – we would not have made it back up by dark. Instead, we opted to start early the next day – this also meant that we would do one of the two big climbs on each day. It made the second day over ninety kilometres, leaving not much time for dilly-dallying or other issues, but seemed a good decision.

Finding another new, well-equipped hut we set about getting the coal range going and drying our bike shoes and clothes. The warden was very friendly and the views from the saddle were much better than I imagined those at Brown Hut at the bottom of the next valley would be. We refueled while watching the sun set on the mountains. Early to bed, satisfied with great day’s ride (James particularly so, the 58 km being his biggest day on a bike – so far) – slept pretty well as the hut was pleasantly warm.

It was not so pleasantly warm when we were out the door and scraping the frost off our bikes at first light the next morning. Unfortunately, I suspect due to a more-limited water supply, this hut did not have a bike wash-down set up – if it had have, we would have bothered to hose the mud off after the first day’s ride. Setting off, we found rear cables frozen – James couldn’t change gear, I had no operational rear brake and my gear shifter was also stuck. It was a gentle climb to start up to the trail’s highest point, Flanagan’s Corner, and left in my easiest gear I was soon spinning out.

That was all sorted out with a drenching of water while we dealt to bigger problems on James’s bike. The Heaphy sure is hard on bikes, particularly chains, with all the mud and grit that flicks up in to drivetrains and brakes. Suddenly, James had no chain – it having come apart. Trying to fix that in the semi-dark with chilled fingers was no fun; once we could see what was going on, the best solution seemed to be installing an eight-speed powerlink on the ten-speed chain. Not ideal, but it worked and it was a lot easier than mucking around with a chain-breaker in the gloom and cold.

We’d hardly got going again when James had that sinking feeling that comes from a puncture – damn. It wasn’t a great start to the day considering the tight schedule we running. That all fixed, we didn’t want to tempt fate and so took it rather easily down to the end of the trail. A nice wide trail, with enough rocks to keep it interesting had us gradually dropping – mercifully, it wasn’t nearly as cold in amongst the trees as I feared. We had occasional glances of the Aorere Valley and the surrounding ranges. For a long time, I’ve not seen a harder frost than the one that greeted us on the valley floor – for that reason, and the extra time we took to descend, we didn’t hang around. Turning at the parking lot, it was straight back into the climb.

The rivers were crystal clear, but on such a chilly morning not at all inviting.

With a nice trail surface and a rather gentle gradient (pretty constant at five percent), we made good time back up to the saddle – only really stopping for a couple of fallen trees and a short snack. As we had to repack our gear (we hadn’t been silly enough to take all our sleeping gear and food to Brown Hut and back) anyway, we had an early lunch while trying to offer V-brake advice to the ranger.

Departing at noon, I thought we would just get through the sixty kilometres by dark as we’d previously averaged just under 10 km/hr riding the same trail in the opposite direction and gaining nine hundred metres of altitude. So with a big net altitude loss, we should be OK without having to push the limits too much. Turns out I was right, we made good time – there was even a bit of time for snapping some photos, chatting to various people: another bikepacker from Yorkshire, our hut companions from Perry Saddle, and the trail builders (although I did embarrassingly get stuck in my clips & fell on a tricky stream crossing right in front of them – getting a little tired).

The wet trail glinting in the early-afternoon sun before the slippery descent onto Gouland Downs.

Looking out over the downs.

As James pointed out, sections of the bush looked a little like giant bonsai trees.

A rather pretty little stream.

Back at sea-level we were on the home stretch – but the Heaphy decided to have one more go at writing James’s drivetrain off – the little chain guides completely ruined. Make sure you’re well covered for spares and mechanical nous on this route – it does at times feel remarkably remote, probably because it is. Also we were back on familiar and faster trails – we almost got back to the car without needing headlamps – donning them only for the last descent from Kohaihai Saddle, as it was very dark under the trees.

I finally bothered to get a photo of one of these signs – the likes of which I’ve never seen on a mountain-bike trail before.

So, it turns out that the Heaphy double is entirely possible over two days – admittedly we had two clear, sunny, almost-windless days – even with a relatively novice bikepacker (having remarkable determination – he says stubbornness – helps). I was pleased to see the whole trail, after missing out ten days prior, and James was excited by conquering the challenge – the second day of ninety-plus kilometres blowing his previous longest day on the bike out of the water.

A great trail through such varied and remote landscape – fully deserving of its “epic” classification in the latest version of the Kennet Brothers’ Classic NZ MTB Rides. Thoroughly recommended; obviously, just going one-way over two days would be more enjoyable and enable more appreciation of the scenery.