Just past the half-way point of the 1150 km course, the end was starting to seem near on the fifth morning. Quite why this was, I’m not sure – there was still much over five hundred kilometres to ride. The fifth day turned out be the best of the lot, despite by far the worst weather of my ride. This was due to the three and a half hours on the ten kilometre Big River Trail & ~twenty kilometres of 4WD road out on Soldiers Big River Rd.

The day started off innocuously enough at my steady (slow) pace on the road to Ikamatua up the left bank of the Grey passing many large diary herds making their way back from the morning milking. I was quickly caught by a few of the riders faster on the road, Gary dragged me to the village store (I think he scratched later that day with recurrent shoulder & back pain) – but as a non-coffee drinker I wasn’t keen on hanging around. Not far north up the highway, the course turned east up the slightly steeper Blackwater valley and the surrounding bush-clad hills closed in ever closer.

At the much-smaller-than-in-its-heyday Blackwater I happened upon the old school. Intrigued and with plenty of time I investigated to find the door unlocked and a few signs of birds having been inside. Suddenly I was transported back a varying number of years – items in the school varied from about a hundred years old to chairs of the type that I spent many hours sitting on while at school in the eighties and nineties. There was a small display providing some details of what was once a bustling gold-mining community.

These chairs will be familiar to so many New Zealanders of my generation.

For me, that’s not a bad selfie.

Moving on, the road became gravelled and steadily climbed up to the old Waiuta township through a mixture of native and plantation forest. Just as I crested the rise, Grenville & Glen from earlier in the morning caught me again. Waiuta was also once a bustling, remote West Coast gold-mining town and it was tempting to spend hours looking around the remaining buildings and gold processing equipment. Alas, there was a remote backcountry trail to ride.

An old pack trail for reaching small mines in the remote forest, it now goes to the Big River Hut and is open to biking as well as walking. In dense forest on the wet West Coast, the trail was predictably damp but never that muddy (too much time riding real English mud). Still gradually climbing a further two-fifty metres, the trail twists and turns incessantly following the contour of hills. The beech forest was immense, with little light filtering through on to all the various shades green coating the trees, rocks and trail.

With plenty of rocks and roots, off-camber too, for one of the few times in the week my tyres made sense and I was so happy they did. While I passed Grenville & Greg very early on pushing around corners – I could and did ride large stretches of the trail, occasionally dabbing or dismounting to get around tight stream crossings or particularly tricky sections. After all, a bad fall here would be a long way/time from help.

Lush!

As seeing new beautiful places of the country was one of the prime motivators for undertaking this event, I was having a grand time in such a remote little corner of NZ. Admittedly, it was slow going – the ten kilometres took almost two hours of solid riding, with only the occasional stop to snack, take a photo or admire the surrounds. But I loved it all and was thrilled to have such opportunities.

One of the many shafts to long-abandoned gold mines passed during the day.

Eventually the trail seemed to settle on & around its highest point – parts of it seemed to go straight down stream beds, with varying degrees of water in them. Coming out of the bush onto a swampy section the route had been boardwalked for a little before dropping down past the Big River Hut (a fair few of the breveters had stayed here over previous nights I think) and the site of the old Big River township. There are still plenty of ruins to poke around, but I carried on crossing the river and getting my feet wet – much to my dismay, but in the grand scheme of the eventual day that didn’t matter. The rain that the forest had kept out got a little heavier out in the open.

The 4WD trail started off with following and crossing Big River a few times before plunging a hundred and fifty metres on a track covered with big chunky rocks. Steep and fast, it was challenging and extremely fun before bottoming out to leave a good honest climb on a similar tricky surface recovering all those metres just lost passing many more disused mines. Then it was back to an even longer rollicking downhill on more of the same fun trail. I was lucky rounding one corner to not integrate myself into the front of a large Mitsubishi pick-up, but the three people inside were very chatty and interested why there were all these crazy people up there with heavily loaded bikes – so I obliged and talked for a few minutes.

Finally, five hours after leaving Ikamatua I was back in civilisation ecstatic about the riding I’d just experienced. What a great trail – easily the best part of the whole brevet course for me. I’m sure it would be much faster with a lighter and full-suspension bike, but I didn’t really miss one on my set-up and don’t think I could hope for more fun & enjoyment – it was sublime. But it was definitely time for lunch and catching up with a few faces I hadn’t seen for days. The other best pies of the week come from Nanna Nii’s Pies Pies Pies store – I recommend the Steak and Bacon & Egg. Leaving (Somerset) Oliver, who I hadn’t seen since early on Day Two, looking for a replacement phone charger, I headed out on the highway towards Springs Junction on a long gradual climb to Rahu Saddle following the Inangahua River.

Soon I’d caught up to Kirsty & Robyn and with Oliver catching up to us, a merry little group was formed as we soon caught John and Hamish. The weather didn’t particularly like us however, or maybe just one of us – I’m unsure who, as the heavens opened and a downpour ensued for the best part of an hour. I made the mistake of not putting my rain trousers on soon enough, but I’m not sure it made much difference as we were all soon soaked and with still twenty or thirty clicks to go before reaching the Junction. With little choice, the cranks kept turning and cresting the saddle it was fast, wet and damn cold down to Springs.

The dryness and warmth of the cafe at Springs Junction was welcome. As it was still utterly miserable, it was not long before the last rooms in the adjoining motel were snapped up as the certainty of a hot dinner and staying dry won out for a few of us – over continuing to Maruia where they weren’t serving food. But still, some hardy souls later rolled in and out again into the rain. Finishing riding for the day at half past five seemed a little ridiculous, but it had been eleven hours for me – so I was happy to have a warm shower, turn our motel room in to a laundry of drying cycling clothes and eat a lot in good company before hitting the hay.

What a fantastic day – even the torrential rain for nigh on an hour couldn’t dampen my spirits. Exploring remote backcountry trail with some sort of epic quality is just fantastic.

It was a much more leisurely start to the day than the previous one – slightly later and no screaming fire alarms helped. I’d made it to Springfield and had enjoyed that day so much, mostly due to McDonald Downs, and kept my bargain with myself – all thoughts of pulling out were gone, I was going to be able to complete this course. Today was the day to cross the Southern Alps and spend some time on the West Coast – an area of NZ notorious for excessive levels of rainfall (all the weather comes across the Tasman Sea and dumps there, leaving the east of the island rather dry).

For the first forty-five minutes a strong easterly helped me on my way, but heading up to Porters Pass my bearing changed slightly and the wind swirled through the mountain valleys. For not the last time in the day, the head and cross wind was horrendous; the road up to the pass was pretty steep too. I passed another breveter and then another passed me – Gary seemed pleased for the company and was much stronger on the road than I, I was happy to follow him up the hill as he mostly battled the wind.

After sheltering at the top for a snack, we crossed the pass and worked into the wind on the way down. Then the road turned more north and the wind swirled around to give another big tail wind. Eventually Gary was too fast for me, so I was back enjoying a beautiful morning in solitude. The wind continued to be hard work most of the time; I made myself take regular mini-breaks and tried to capture the expanse of the valley in a few photos.

The highlight of the morning’s riding was having to stop for road work at the top of a large hill after Craigieburn – the traffic having been reduced to one lane. I was at the front of the queue and eventually I was let loose down the hill – there is something thrilling about riding a loaded mountain-bike down hills at over seventy kilometres an hour, all the others on faster tyres and higher gears must have really been flying down here. It was sometime before the traffic passed me again.

Then things turned horrible again as the wind changed again for a good couple of hours about the time I reached Lake Pearson – I was glad I hadn’t made it that far the night before to camp, it would have been a restless night. With my speed again reduced to about half of what it would normally be on flat road, it was proper hard slow work. Just as I reached the Waimakariri crossing I caught up to Kirsty & Robyn – it was nice to have a little company for the gradual climb up to Arthurs Pass Village, which was more sheltered and much preferable to being out in the wind.

There was a small collection of Breveters at the store – time to have one of the best pies (I recommend the New York Peppered Steak) of the week and stock up on food for the coming day(s). The remaining climb up to the actual pass was nowhere near as bad as Porters Pass.

When asked to take a photo, I stupidly suggested holding bikes above heads without realising I’d have to do the same and the rear of my bike is very heavy.

So this photo looks a lot less strained.

The descent down to the west of the island was extremely steep – it was fast, fun and I was very pleased we’d not had to climb it. There was another little gathering at the closed-on-Tuesdays Jackson Pub before the route turned north-east from the highway and we had a pretty decent tailwind for a while on the flat. Rolling past dairy farms now, there was an extended stop at a roadside plum tree before a lengthy section on gravel roads through native bush – beautiful. I was lagging back enjoying the moment, riding so slowly I managed to snap some slightly wonky photos – admittedly, there are no giraffes, but they’re OK.

After stopping slightly shorter than my goal the day before, I thought I’d be able to manage to make up the difference as this day was all on the road (mostly sealed, some gravel). To Blackball was almost 190 km – easily my biggest day on a bike. As we rolled into Blackball at about eight o’clock, it was tempting to continue on to get the double century and camp at some clearing on the side of the road near the Grey River. But it was more tempting to sit down at the Blackball Hilton and enjoy the best meal I had all week – a large pork stir-fry with stacks of vegetables and rice, nothing deep-fried in sight, brilliant. I ended up staying the night.

I had hoped that a night in a hotel would bring a good night’s sleep. Alas, the heat and the highway traffic conspired against me – the old Hurunui Hotel was so hot I had not only my windows open, but the room door too (it was a rather empty hotel), which let all the noise in from the trucks. For some reason I thought getting up at five o’clock was prudent, as the only other Breveters (rhymes with purveyors we decided) staying in the hotel were.

It turned out to be a wise decision as shortly after either Kirsty or Robyn (I never asked) set off the fire alarm by burning the toast while making the breakfast that had been left out for us. Much hilarity ensued due to the ridiculousness of the situation (it took fifteen minutes for the woken-manager to work out how to turn it off). I hope it is a long time before an automated voice orders me to make my way to the nearest emergency exit again. I may have more permanent damage to my hearing from that fifteen minutes than from ten years working in industry. On a now-still and quiet morning, we hit the road while it was still dark.

As we headed for the hills, the sun rose behind us on the plains and the morning chill disappeared. By now I was riding by myself again and I could take my time as I entered McDonald Downs Station (I think this was the only bit of private land we went on during the event) and wound up, down and around many hills. Never too onerous, it was an absolutely magnificent stretch of riding with the early morning light on the drought-stricken hills and the smell of morning dew thick in air for miles and miles. I tried to take a few photos but it was one of those times where a camera could not come close to capturing all that my various senses were taking in. That ninety minutes still remains as one of the highlights of the week – I was well pleased that the organisers had somehow managed to arrange access to a place I doubt I’ll ever see again.

Being in such a remote place must do something to one’s sense of humour – apparently it’s 5000 km to nearby Greymouth, but only 3000 km to Sydney.

This particular Monday seemed a busy one for farmers (& apiarists – I saw quite a few) – here is one of the few traffic jams of sheep or cattle I got caught in, maybe they were all destocking due to the drought conditions.

Climbing up to Lees Pass we were back on the road and out of McDonald Downs – there was a section of about thirty kilometres mostly cruising down the road in Lees Valley before we turned off to take 4WD trail to the Wharfedale Track. The access trail climbed gradually with a fair few stream crossings near the end that weren’t rideable. It wasn’t far along the track to the Wharfedale Hut – which had a surprising amount of food left there by previous visitors.

I rested at the Wharfedale Hut for half an hour, mostly because I could, and snapped this shot – just to mirror the one I took seven and a half years ago.

Climbing up to the saddle, the sixteen kilometre section of track was pretty rugged due to frequent washouts – & not nearly as much fun with a loaded bike as it was with a full-suspension trail bike those years ago. One particular part of the track had washed out so much there was less than a foot of trail width to traverse a few metres above a five metre sheer bank. I shuffled across with my bike on the outside of the trail to come across Alistair – poor guy had just spent an hour getting himself, his bike and all his gear back up the bank after they all went down together! Finally the high point was attained and there was a bit of downhill to enjoy at the weather rolled in from the west – managed to not get wet, despite the ominous looking clouds banking up.

Back on roads of various states, it was a gravity & wind assisted ride into Sheffield – unfortunately the renowned pie shop was shut so late in the afternoon. Disappointed, I resolved to eat more pies later in the week. After a refreshment stop at the pub I turned into what was now a howling norwester. So strong was the wind, the flat ten kilometres out of Sheffield took me fifty minutes of constant futile-seeming effort, often trying to hide in the lee of the occasional shelter belt of trees.

Reaching Springfield I restocked on food at the gas station (finally got a pie) and, looking at the sky, contemplated my next move. After the slow progress on the Wharfedale and into the wind out of Sheffield and considering the black clouds rolling over the hills (where the course went next) I thought it a good idea to stay put for the night. Unfortunately the pub was closed on a Monday night (what?!), so it was a variety of gas station food for dinner – not as bad as it sounds – and I camped at the sheltered local domain and had a fantastic night’s sleep.

One can’t complain too much when you wake up in the wilderness with views like this:

I had a leisurely start to the day & managed to eat the rest of my dinner that I couldn’t the night before. The other two were off well before me, so I spent most of the morning riding solo. Back on the route, it was soon the turn off to the St James Cycleway – part of the NZ Cycle Trail. I’ve ridden a few of the easier trails that are part of the network further south recently, but this was a whole different level and was actually mountain-biking – it was incredible.

First up it was a decent 250 m climb on 4WD track up to Maling Pass, at just over 1300 m. The views looking down into the Waiau were more than worth it, and the very fun fast rocky descent to the valley floor was excellent.

From Maling Pass looking down to the Waiau.

This was definitely an intermediate grade trail down the valley – a lot of fun, but at times quite hard work with a loaded bike. Sometimes it was just following small paths across the grass on the river plains, at other times the purpose built trail had to climb a bit away from the valley floor – some of the pitches were so steep they required walking. At one stage the river valley narrowed to a steep-sided rocky gorge – so there were some wire swing bridges to cross, not always the easiest with a heavy bike and certain peril staring you in the face.

Most of the way down the valley, an ominous black cloud had been chasing me – thankfully it never broke completely, but the light rain that fell had a nice cooling effect as the day warmed up. It started to get pretty hot, & I made a point of drinking a lot – but still struggled to fight off a little nausea. After quite some time I finally caught up to some other riders – I think they’d had a much earlier start than I did. Turning east it was up over Charlies Saddle (more pushing) to go east up the Edwards River valley. That was manageable, but climbing out of that to Peters Pass was a solid fifteen minute push at gradients over twenty percent – hard work & I was starting to get a little fed up. At least there were a few other people around – some struggling like me, others depressingly riding a lot of it.

At the top of that climb the pass turned to an easy grade trail down to the St James Homestead. I cruised down that, wondering how much longer I would be able to go on, as the others all took off for Hamner Springs – which I was very much looking forward to seeing. The trail at ended at the homestead – it would be great to do it one day on an unloaded trail bike. Jacks Pass was a bit of a non-event, much to my relief, before a screaming 500 m drop down into the hot spring resort town of Hamner – it was nice to see civilisation again. I was so exhausted I spent about half an hour lying on the grass in the shade of big trees in the centre of town as the drizzle continued to fall. Back in phone coverage, I was able to pick up a couple of short encouraging messages that had been left, which did untold wonders for my spirits and determination to finish – I made a deal with myself that I’d complete this day & the next before making any rash decisions like pulling out or changing to the Brevette (which plenty of people had been doing).

With a bit of food, here I discovered the brilliance of salt & vinegar crisps (they’ve always been my favourite – but there restorative properties, mainly helping with salt levels, were new to me), and after a good rest I was ready for the fifty comparatively easy kilometres on highway to Hurunui. I took it easy, but being on the road my speed was well above the average for the rest of the day. At Culverden I came across a small group just setting off again after a coffee stop. Somehow I managed to hold on to the back of that group as Dan set off at quite some pace for the last fifteen kilometres to Hurunui (where I had planned to get to that night, at least). We stopped for a swim in the Huruni River and enjoyed the warmth of the late afternoon. With some good company, a swim and then the pub stop my Kiwi Brevet was back on track and saved – I was a happy camper again.