Category Archives: friends

bikepacking, bikes, event, family, friends, GPS, NZ

Tour Aotearoa – My Day Nine – Palmerston North to Wellington

1 Comment

With all the hills of northern Manawatu still in my legs, I’d no real plan for how far I’d make it. I also realised I hadn’t seen a single rider on the route the previous day – a first for my Tour. That was quite alright as I’d so enjoyed the day. The day from Palmerston North turned out to be quite social in other ways. Having seen university flatmates, Terry & Kate, in town I was pleased to see a car pull over in front of me as I ground up the Pahiatua Track. After battling with a typically dastardly Palmy gale for ninety-odd minutes, the chance to stop was welcome. It was Louis, a childhood friend & uni flatmate of the same flat, on his way to work in Pahiatua – great to catch up, albeit in an unusual place.

Not far past the summit was a turn off to a rural road – it was nice to escape the morning traffic crossing the Tararuas. Most of the day was on rural back roads through more hilly farms – first dairying country, before it got drier and more inclined to sheep & beef farming. I was disappointed not to get a full English breakfast in Pahiatua, but still ate well for second breakfast. After the steep downhill off the ranges, the route climbed gradually for fifty or so clicks – thankfully the wind was much less forceful on the east of the Tararuas. Still a headwind for much of the day, it was not quite a nuisance or too much of a hindrance.

More rural scenes, it started out green.

I stopped for the photo checkpoint, and pies, in Eketahuna. The giant kiwi has gone albino.

Around noon, a friend met me in the middle of nowhere to ride the thirty-five kilometres down into Masterton. Craig, a Pukekohe & NZ Steel mountain-biking buddy, was now back learning the ropes to take over the family farm. It was great to have someone to chat with (there was a lot of catching up to do as we hadn’t seen each other since the fantastic Queen Charlotte ride seven years before) – obviously Craig was pretty interested in the Tour and bikes too, so the time passed quickly.

I did find a proper breakfast (second-lunch, or third-breakfast, by this stage) in Masterton. There were even beans! Little did I know that that would be the last full English I’d find on my trip – despair.

Masterton even got in on this swing-bridge thing, but I suspect they’d had their’s long before DOC even existed.

Bidding farewell to Craig, I continued south into the breeze, enjoying the scenery and the lack of traffic. I always found plenty to look at – at some stage there was even a big sign out encouraging Tour Aotearoa riders. It was definitely drier this far south in the Wairarapa. There was plenty of time to think with no other riders around. As I considered the previous week, thoughts turned to the Tour Divide – what I like to call the grandaddy of these types of events. That event has been on my radar for a few years now and I was beginning to think that I might be a possibility of having a good attempt at it.

But it’s so much more epic, that it would require much more planning and time. At about 4500 km (fifty percent longer) and with over sixty thousand metres of climbing (almost twice as much) following the Continental Divide from Canada through five US states to the Mexican border it is more extreme in almost every way. Longer, colder (up north), hotter (down south), with dangerous animals, proper mountain passes, and greater distances between resupply – I’d be a fool to turn up with amount of preparation I did for Tour Aotearoa. One day, in a few years, I’ll have sufficient leave and time to have a go – at least, I sure hope so as Tour Aotearoa had been so fantastic so far.

I turned east towards Martinborough as the sun sunk.

It was great to stop in Martinborough and to catch up my uncle and aunt. As always, Tour stories and practicalities dominated the conversation. The week so far was certainly different for me – having so much to talk about. From here, I had a few options: call an early day in Martinborough, or carry on riding and either camp at the top of the Rimutakas, stay the night at one of the open homes (there were homes of supporters of the Tour on the route that were open to riders to stay in) around Wellington or make the early morning Cook Strait ferry.

After a nap and dinner, I went with the theory it’s good to do something a little crazy & push oneself every so often; I jumped online and booked a ticket on the two-thirty ferry. I had six hours to ride a hundred kilometres and cross the Rimutakas by night. It would be close, but I was confident as the wind would be at my back from Martinborough to the hills and I’d previously crossed the Rimutaka Incline and knew it wasn’t too difficult (being an old, albeit steeper-than-normal, rail route). All went pretty much according to plan, I easily made the Incline trailhead before dark and the trail up was easily ridden in the dark.

Heading for the hills.

Another checkpoint – the Rimutaka summit tunnel, at about twenty to ten.

It was a pleasant night for riding (I don’t think I would have bothered otherwise) and the ride off the hills was great fun. Things started to slow a bit as I followed the Hutt River down to Wellington harbour. The navigation through all the little turns wasn’t particularly easy in the dark, even with the GPS track to follow, and it just went on and on. I was starting to cut it fine, but finally I was on the cycle path sandwiched between dual-carriageway and the harbourside railway heading for the ferry terminal. I was surprised to have to stop and get marshalled through midnight track work that had taken over the cycle path.

With only seven kilometres to go I started getting calls from the ferry company wondering where I was. Apparently boarding was an hour before sailing for foot passengers (!) – I’d not read that in my rush to book a ticket. I assured them I was almost there and then stepped on the gas. Another phone call from someone else at the ferry halted progress – “I’d be there by now if you’d stop bloody phoning me”. Past parliament and I checked in – & then promptly waited fifteen minutes until boarding.

There were far more Tour Aotearoa riders waiting in the boarding lounge than I imagined – they’e all been in Wellington far longer than I had. I was pleased to finally catch up to and chat to Jonathon Kennett – thanks to his tireless work putting the route together and basically organising everything, we were all on this grand adventure. The adrenaline was still coursing through me after the mad dash at the end of a pleasant night ride, so I found it a little difficult to settle into a slumber after we boarded.

I did remember to get the obligatory checkpoint photo from the ferry, before trying to get some sleep on the rest of the voyage.

Stretched out over a few seats, I took some time to consider that I’d just ridden (more than, really) the length of the North Island in eight and a half days. Over half the trip was done and I was therefore well on track to finish in the eighteen days I had – this was good to know. But even more pleasing was that I’d put some consecutive long, hilly, rough, hot and tough days together without too much bother – that is after the stomach upsets of the first twenty-four hours. I wasn’t expecting that. With this general satisfaction of my Tour so far and anticipation of the remaining adventure I drifted off to a surprisingly reasonable, albeit only three hours, of sleep. Oh, and this was my longest day on a bike ever – but by no means the toughest.

family, friends, hiking, NZ

Lake Christabel turnaround

1 Comment

I’m unsure who was more excited – Adele to take two novices for an overnight hike (tramp in the local parlance) or Fiona to go on said hike. It assuredly was not me – but I was more than happy to go along for a walk, at the very least there would be a whole lot less cleaning afterwards than after a West Coast winter mountain-bike ride. We set off early Saturday morning east through the Buller Gorge and carried on past Reefton as dawn marched on.

Adele had chosen a route that would take us from the Lewis Pass highway (just short of Maruia Springs), up besides Rough Creek and on to the tops before descending to the overnight hut at Lake Christabel Hut (which is actually a mile short of the lake), before walking out to Palmer Rd. As such, we had to leave a car at the end of our planned walk – we discovered it really was quite cold out, as all the short wooden bridges on this rural road were iced over.


View Larger Topographic Map

Nonetheless, car shuffle done we set off alongside Rough Creek. Quickly, it became obvious that the creek was not the only rough feature around – the trail was mostly unformed and soon started steeply climbing the hill over a lot of tree roots and moss.

The sun made a brief appearance in the sky – some of its light even filtered through the canopy.

The route flattened out a bit as we walked beside and through/over the river for a while.

While we were still well below the tree line, we started to come across patches of snow – a somewhat worrying sign for walking over the tops.

We made good time to the tree line and started tracking our way through a good half-foot of snow to get a view of where the snow-poles would lead us. Visibility had decreased, but we could make out a few poles in front of us – as it wasn’t windy or miserable we decided to push on. The snow deepened – generally about knee high, occasionally I post-holed to my waist when I was making tracks. We were glad to have a hiking pole each – just as well someone thought to bring those .

There’s a pole! Go over there. About half-way up Adele took the lead through the steeper terrain, I had it easy at the back for a while.

Reaching the saddle (we’d climbed about 900 metres in four kilometres – a bit more than I’m used to), we turned to see cloud filling the valley we’d walked up.

Venturing just over the saddle, Adele suddenly found it very icy and compacted. We were unprepared for such conditions, with no crampons or ice-axes (and Fiona & I have no real experience in using such things). The ice patch was likely not that large, but it wasn’t a risk worth taking – so we turned and headed back down the hill. I’m sure I’ve said before, I loathe prolonged walking downhill – especially with a large pack – it just hurts and there’s no challenge or enjoyment in it. Thankfully we made it back to the car safely – which is no mean feat considering the number of small falls Fiona and I had on the slippery route/roots back down.

So for the second time this year, due to adverse conditions I found myself staying at the rather bizarre Alpine Motor Inn & Cafe at Springs Junction – a place I didn’t even know existed last year. I think I even had the same burger – it was just as large and somewhat weird (probably due to the hash-brown). Grateful for a roof overhead (it was cheaper than huts on the Heaphy) – it was just as well we had our sleeping bags as the only heater in the room shone like a small star, so had to be turned off at night. The provided linen would have been OK, perhaps, in summer. A memorable and perversely fun place to stay, if only for odd reasons – including the mountain stream that the stone-walled building was built into, it reminded me of being in European mountain villages.

Sunday was a much more leisurely day – mostly because we didn’t take loaded overnight packs on a day walk and the terrain and trail was much friendlier. Also, hot pools! Just past Lewis Pass is the northern trailhead of the St James Walkway – a sixty-six, five day hike. We walked the first hour or so until we got a decent view of Cannibal Gorge (a literal name, unfortunately) and then stopped for a snack before returning to the shelter at the start of the trail – where (royal) we cooked and feasted on Pad Thai (meant to be the previous night’s hut-dinner), yum.

A pretty little walk, I don’t think it even rained and considering the snow and ice around – not too cold for wearing shorts either. With all this extra time, we went and soaked in the Maruia Hot Springs. I’ve driven past here a few times in the last few months – considering it’s in the middle of nowhere, it rather odd it is so Japanese-spa themed. Nice all the same.

bikes, family, friends, MTB, NZ

West Coast Weeks

Leave a comment

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!

Aus, bikepacking, bikes, family, friends, NZ, travel

Visiting long-neglected friends & family

Leave a comment

Returning from Wanaka and Queenstown, it wasn’t long before confirmation of a job interview in the North Island finally came through. As I had to be near Auckland for a wedding at Easter there wasn’t much point in coming back in between, so a three week trip up north was hastily booked and all of a sudden I was back visiting familiar faces and places.

The nights either side of the interview I was pleased to back at one of my favourite places – Lake Tarawera – visiting Bron & Terry. Among the numerous improvements since my last visit, there’s now a spa pool at the edge of the lawn. The view has always been spectacular – it’s even better from a hot-tub.

It wasn’t too bad in the morning either!

Straight after the interview, I drove to the Redwoods, got changed out of my suit in the car & pulled my bike out for a ride around one of the most popular riding destinations in the country. Surprised by all the development at the parking lot, I did a route I regularly did before I left. I must be an awful lot fitter or my memory is fading – it didn’t take nearly as long as I remember. These trails were feeling pretty worn in places – I’m sure I’d have had more fun if I was on a more trail-oriented bike or chosen new trails.

Still, I got to ride this classic – which I never get tired of, even after twenty years.

Back to Auckland, there was time to drop the rental car off and bike across Auckland for the first time before catching up with and baby-sitting for Shelley and Andrew & family. Before noon the next day I was in Parramatta ready to see my grandfather for the first time since November 2008. In that time, dementia has well and truly set in (much as it did for my grandmother in the years before her death) so I had some idea of what to expect. I was pleased to find Grandad a lot more cheerful than he could have been, even if any sort of short to medium term memory has pretty much gone.

While most of my time was spent at my grandparents’ house, that’s now usually unoccupied and hasn’t changed much in my life and I suspect since it was built in the mid-sixties, there were a few pleasant day-trips around the city. Unfortunately, I’m pretty useless at taking photos in Sydney as I’ve been visiting since I was eight months old. But here are some token ones.

A day trip to Manly with Valerie – mostly on the Rivercat and the Manly ferry.

A great day catching up with Kiwi cousin Chris, who I last saw before he left London in mid-2011. $2 all-day public transport on a Sunday – brilliant. My first visit to Watsons Bay and the south head of the entrance to the harbour.

Back in Auckland, I had arrived in time to watch the thrilling cricket semi-final between South Africa and New Zealand – with Eden Park just down the road from Andrew & Shelley’s we could hear the cheers for each wicket and boundary, not to mention the fireworks. With not much sleep after that excitement and the change in time-zone, I headed off on a little bikepacking tour.

Much more than usual, the cycling was a means to an end. Being so, the riding on roads I’ve been familiar with my whole life was pretty boring. The riding highlights were cycle trail through the Karangahake Gorge (especially the over-a-kilometre long tunnel) and riding back past Kawakawa Bay. But the general tedium of the riding was more than made up for by catching up with so many people that are dear to me – plus meeting all the new offspring, I think there were six in various homes.

Back in Auckland for a couple of nights there was the chance to see a few more people and try to fly kites at a local park and all of a sudden I was in Waiuku, within sight of the steel mill, and with more old friends. But that was nothing compared to the Easter weekend to come.

For Luke and Anna’s wedding a lot of us stayed at Castaways at Karioitahi Beach. I’d only visited this beach once while I lived in Pukekohe, and never Castaways – what a great venue. Quality accommodation and the views up and down the beach and over the Tasman were fantastic. Anna being the eldest daughter of the family in whose home my sister, Adele (who was one of the bridesmaids), and I spent so much time  growing up in Te Puke – there were many familiar faces. The wedding was absolutely lovely and we all had a lot of fun. About half of those at the wedding stayed the three nights after, so there were many good times together over barbecues, on the beach (I even tried to explain making steel from the sand to a seven year old, I’m not sure that was successful), some mountain-biking at my old local trail and more good food.

I even got an unplanned trip back to Te Puke in when Kathryn (Anna’s eldest sister) needed help moving furniture from Auckland before jetting off to live in the UK. Muggins me had nothing better to do, so I was happy to help a little and go for a fun little road-trip.

Back in Auckland it was a beautiful day for a trip out to Waiheke Island to visit a Pukekohe riding buddy (we’ve both obviously moved since then). The riding was nice and the beer and hospitality so good, I crashed in the guest room before heading back to town on the ferry with a whole lot of commuters the next morning.

This ferry trip from Queen’s Wharf has many similarities with leaving Circular Quay in Sydney.

Catching up with more friends over the course of the day, and continuing to indulge in the now-in-season feijoas, it was a big day in which I still managed to pack up my bike and everything else I’d been dragging around for the last three weeks. It’s nice to be home now, but it’s so much more autumn-like down here unfortunately. Perhaps that’ll give me time and motivation to try a little harder to find a job…