South Canterbury to Otago with a few hills!!

A week away in South Canterbury and Otago with a few hills!!

Temuka – Waimate – Kurow – Hakataramea – Black Forest Station – Otematata – Omarama – Little Omarama Saddle – Oturehua – Dansey’s pass – Duntroon – Oamaru

About 80% off road or less than a few cars an hour.

Those that know,  beyond SH1 in South Canterbury NZ, there is some amazing bikepacking country with miles of gravel roads, quiet towns and great views and some nasty little hills.

 

 

DCIM100GOPRO

With minimal use of the state highways, you can link it up to the Alps to Ocean and the Bikepacker Central connector route, better known as the Otago Rail Trail opening up that whole region.  If required, there are good bike shops in Timaru and Oamaru, with various places on the A2O and the rail trail, that you would find help if required.

There are lots of options, I rode for two days with friend’s Bryan and Phil, I met up with them in Kurow and left them in Otematata, they went home via Kurow.

The ride was about 520km with 7000m of climbing, crawling and walking and sheer grinning pleasure on the down hills, oh not forgetting the views, bring a camera.

I would say, this is not a beginner’s ride and a Spot tracker or Epirb is well worth carrying, as in parts you’re a long way from help, with no cell coverage and watch the weather. Access to Black Forest is free, but you need to call to check it is okay before you go, there is no camping allowed on the Station.

I started in Temuka, its home, but there is a New World, campsite, café, free parking and the water is now asbestos free! Waimate has much the same as Temuka in facilities, but has Wallabies. Kurow again, similar facilities, assume little or no food or water between but only a few hours of riding, so no real problem, pack a lunch and snacks couple of bottles water and you’ll be fine.

Fill up in Kurow, there is no food until Otematata, but water is plentiful currently, however we’ve had a lot of rain recently and the streams are flowing well. We camped by the river on the Hakataramea, it was -2C over night, but in the mid to high 20C during the day, the Hakataramea is 100% rideable and the surface is good. We carried on to Black Forest Station the next day, the hills here are hard going and we had to walk some, there are multiple climbs through here and a few big descents with some good drop offs if you get it wrong, awesome riding but a longish day, time more than distance,  arriving in Otematata that evening, pub food very good, all the basics you need here and Omarama.

Little Omarama Saddle is a stunning  very steep ride, and I took my bike for a walk most of the way up, the descent is rough as nuts, then becomes very rutted as you go on. There is no water until you get over the pass, but plenty on the other side, getting increasingly deeper as you go, there are about 10 river crossings that require you to carry your bike. It floods through here, and the wind really blows, so hence watch the weather, no food till Oturehua, which has a pub, general store and Backpackers that will provide dinner if required.

Went on to Dansey’s pass via Naseby, good café just beyond the park, pack a lunch and you’ll be fine with a couple bottles of water. There are options along the way to top up water from streams. There is the Dansey’s Coach Inn, 20km from Naseby and you can get a lavender ice cream on the other side of the pass, there is also a campground that looks nice, but have never stopped there. The pass is totally rideable, and I was passed by only 3 cars. The surface was being graded, which made it a little soft in places.

The Duntroon pub and also the café have   now closed down. You can then follow the A2O to Oamaru, which is a pleasant ride.

Dinner with the wife

Route can be found here South Canterbury to Otago with a few hills!!

 

 

High Country Brevet 2017

Day 1 Rangiora to Oxford the long way (142 km)

Magilla ready to roll

Day dawn early and cool on Rangiora this weekend a nice warm 2ºC which was a massive -6ºC warmer than last year, however no glorious sun to warm the core. The ride from Rangiora gives little to no indication of what is to come, but there is a little matter of 142 km and about 2600 meters of climbing and about 95% of the course on gravel, which makes for a long hard day, with 10.5 hours of pedal time.

At the start 23 riders set off and by the time we had morning tea sadly riders had already pulled out through sickness and injury. Morning tea was a brief but spirited affair with lots of leg pulling and bike talk.

Ready for the off

Morning Tea

Refreshed and soon off to the the start of the climbing proper, and once it starts it just seems to never stop,  and by lunchtime I had climbed about 1200 meters and knew I still had that to do again and more and still well under half way.

Its a stunning  part of New Zealand and you really can feel alone and it has an absolute empty vastness, however this year I am fitter and was able to enjoy company for the complete course, last year I rode it alone. Due to logging operations in the forest we had a little Detour to the course which added 7.5 km and around 400 meters of extra climbing, so we rode up to the apex of the range sunk back down into the valley, happy faces all round.

The daylight gave way to darkness and we are still climbing and its getting cold; the start of the frost settling on the cattle feed and stars were epic due to no light pollution, you see no cars and very random farm buildings its really not the place to have a problem, I ended up riding with Barry who had a good ride but suffered in the last few hours, from the cold and was tired and hungry, the relief on his face when we crested the last hill and you can see the lights of Christchurch and then Oxford was palpable. Something I personally felt the year before.

We slowly rolled in to Oxford at about 9.30pm a long day as we started at 8am and I had left home at 4.45am, said my farewell to Barry he had decided day one was enough, and his wife was waiting to take him home.  I was very glad to have agreed to share a motel room with Bryan it was much warmer than the tent I had planned on.

Warmed up showered then ate some food and shared a beer with Bob and Bryan then slept.

Day 2 Oxford back to the start Rangiora

(short course 124 km)

Would like to say woke early and set off that would be untrue, but did lie dozing listening to the rain and wind and thinking, Bugger!

So by the time we left Oxford 23 was down to 14 and only one person did the full course everyone else decided to short course including myself. I knew with the weather front we had that I needed a fourth day to finish and that would have been a fail anyway as I turned away from the course about 40km from Oxford it was wet and cold and snowing in the hills.

 

I rode today with Bryan back to Rangiora through some difficult  boggy sticky tracks which made it hard going at times, but a much easier day for the fact that you pass through towns with cafes etc and only 500 meters of climbing, would have been a really easy ride on its own but after yesterday my legs were like lead, and the 30 or so gates I had to lift a 24 kg bike over did not help matters, still looking on the bright side it got lighter as the day went on. As we went over the bridge into kaiapoi bryan’s rear tyre punctured, slowed our progress but we soon reached Rangiora both happy to be finish at about 7pm, I arrived home around 10 very tired but having had a great weekend.

 

Day 2 TA 2016 Here come the hills

Ahipara to Waipoua 125 km  +2024 m / -1951 m 9 hours riding time

This morning I crawled out of my sleeping bag still dehydrated from the beach and nothing but food on my mind, well thats not true, Ferries were the other thing of great importance. I took way too long to get started this morning, but got all day. However only till tomorrow about 4 pm to get the boat that would be a real pain if I missed it as it would cost me a day and not being the worlds fastest rider to lose a day at this early stage wouldn’t be good.

So yes I had all day but still had about 240 km to ride over 2 days and its not going to be flat.

The only problem of being by the sea is going inland means up and today’s ride was a real roller coaster and the goal was two-fold

1. Be in Rawene before the last ferry at 7pm
2. Cover over 120km

That may not sound like a lot to some but with my longest training ride being 100 km it was a stretch for me and again the far north was living up to its reputation for great weather and it was in the 30s celsius again, and no matter how much I drank, I knew it was not enough.

So the order of the day became up down gravel road more up and gravel, following the path less traveled. I rode alone for most of the morning till a bumped into a women who was riding the TA also while I was trying to work out which way to go at a junction that wasn’t that clear. She came up the road and I mean really UP, she had sailed passed the corner and down the 9km hill and then had to come back up to this junction, she recommend the down hill, but not the return trip.

Rather pleased to get to the ferry to Rawene, this was the first of 5 boats required to complete the ride, so in my mind it was a milestone, but of course I just missed it so a 20 minute break, plenty of time to fill up at the food truck, on a huge milkshake, burger and coffee and a cake and a chat with the locals.

During my wait I was joined by a rider who had left his wallet in the campsite at Ahipara he had realised when he got to the ferry and was about to pay, he then turned back and rode the 60km back to collect it, when I saw him he looked pretty fresh and was pushing on, he had already ridden 180km that day, he seemed really up beat about the whole thing!

On the other side I briefly met up again with  another rider while shopping in Rawene her name is Marilyn, it seemed already that the riders were falling into loose groups created by pace. Off I went with the new goal of reaching Tāne Mahuta, New Zealand’s largest living kauri tree.

I reached Tāne just before dark and as a fellow breveter Craig was leaving, he said he was going to a campsite a little further on down the track. Got my photos of Tāne and then had a desperate rush for the bathroom, seems that food truck hygiene may not have been great and it left me still further dehydrated.

I left Tāne Mahuta in the dark and it was really cold, it was like the lights went out and I was in a fridge and shivering. Riding through the forest in the dark is quite something and the noise volume is crazy and everything going bump in the night.

I rode on into the darkness not knowing where this camp was and then out of the darkness I saw a sign saying 4km, the last few km were down hill which was nice but again very cold, it took an age to find the campsite in the dark, I’m sure I was the last to arrive all I could hear was snoring, but I could see loads of bikes so I was pretty chuffed to be there on night 2. So a 13 hour day, ended with shower food and bed.

Tour Aotearoa 2016 and we’re off

Well in to bed early the chatting finished quickly as it would seem the sand flies like Tapotupotu campsite too, but the warm night air, sea lapping up the beach and the fact that I hadn’t slept in two days soon had me sleeping like a baby,

Up way too early this morning I was worried about missing the 2PM start or just plain excited I’m not really sure, but the wonderful ride down to the beach meant only one thing the day started with a climb to the cape and the day was warming up fast.

So I arrive at Cape Reinga for the first time sometime around 10am it rather nice there but not a great amount to do for four hours. The other thing with the cape is that it is a According to mythology, the spirits of the dead travel to Cape Reinga on their journey to the afterlife to leap off the headland and climb the roots of the 800-year-old pohutukawa tree and descend to the underworld to return to their traditional homeland of Hawaiki, using the Te Ara Wairua, the ‘Spirits’ pathway’. At Cape Reinga they depart the mainland. They turn briefly at the Three Kings Islands for one last look back towards the land, then continue on their journey.

What this means to the hungry cyclist is that Cape Reinga is considered by the Māori as wāhi tapu which means that it is sacred to their people and that no food is to be consumed at the cape.  So a four hour wait was far from ideal, however the Māori staff at cape gave us a special dispensation to allow us to eat as we also were going on a long journey.

By the time the start came about the sun was in full bake mode and the mercury had risen above 30 celsius, but I was just glad to get going, and OMG we went down that hill that I had ground my way up, there were bikes all over the road, no one warns you about this sort of mass start where you put speed demons and Captain slows in a bunch and let them go, I remember looking down at my GPS and seeing 70KPH and think it was time to just slow up and watching the fast riders disappear into the distance.

The beach took me over an hour to reach and had I have known what was in store I might have changed my mind. I took my beach photo all smiles and joy

Now 90 mile beach is actually only 55 miles long and by the end of the day I was very glad of that fact, didn’t take many photos on the beach there is little point here is the beach!

We had a head wind and it was really hot which made it hard going and water was a real problem for most riders that day, I used a full 3 liters on the beach and it took on the feeling of being in the  French Foreign Legion, March or die! By the time I got off the beach it had been dark for some time, I got to the chip shop around 9:30 pm dehydrated very hungry and well pleased with myself. This was the beginning of being stalked by people using the Spot trackers, to see where we were and if they should stay open or to say hello or bring gifts, this made me feel very special, and so my love affair of all things food began.

So day 1 ended in the campsite in Ahipara after a 113.3 km, washed the sand off my bike and showered and into my tent for a sweaty night and lights out from around midnight and the first long day done.

Toku Haerenga Tour Aotearoa 2016

Toku haerenga translates to my  journey. It was a very private trip shared with about 250 riders, thousands of dot followers, immersed by half the population of New Zealand and thrust on the wider world by the power of the web, so as I say a private and very personal journey.

One of the interesting aspects of Tour Aotearoa (TA) looking back was the the Facebook forum, it was a wealth of knowledge, lively debate and a meeting place for a group of people I now genuinely call friends.

Somehow all of this had to fit

Traveling to the start for me was part of the journey flying to Auckland around midnight, was meant to arrive around 10 pm but flight delayed, this became a real pain as I had no fuel for my stove and was going to by at the shops but they were now closed more of this later.

So I spent  the night in the terminal chatting  to Sam Davidson  and an ever growing crowd of TA riders till 6 in the morning  when we caught the bus up to Waitiki Holiday Park.  It may not of been the cheapest way to travel but I would do it again, it was easy and got to meet some great people many of whom I rode on this epic odyssey, anyone that was on the bus will remember our conductor the shrinking violet Kevin Searle. 

Arriving at the Waitiki Holiday Park the great unloading and assemble began and like many the destination for the day was Tapotupotu campsite.  So before I had even set off disaster struck and the buckle on my seat pack snapped, so with cable ties and string and no fuel I set off for Tapotupotu.

So glad I did it was an amazing place to spend the night coming down to the beach was everything you see in the pictures and more.

That night I was given free fuel and fed thanks to Erick and Greg I soon realised this was just a cunning plan to shed some weight which I was more than happy to carry 🙂

Finally the day I had spent the last year plotting, planing and preparing for was here

Well the next couple of days !!!!

Grinding the gravel roads

Slowly working my way round the local gravel roads and finding all the hills. Followed the pioneer trail and found a 300 meter gravel climb 🙂 Have had my saddle to high and it has been causing some knee pain which has been a complete git. Surprised that by lowering the saddle I have more power on the hills and am using different gears to climb which is awesome, but now tendons on the back of the knee need a good stretch as the are now being used more.
Going to change to a 170mm crank length from a 175mm to try to remove some of the stress on the right leg, I must have had a complete brain fart when I brought the current one as I have always been happy on a 170mm and didn’t think 5mm would be a problem, well for me it has and I am going to remove this before I damage something.
Some pictures from what felt love like the top of the world

Great day out

Well slip slap slop sun screen a must nice 60 km ride up to the Opihi Vineyard. Lots of gravel roads and next to no cars also the wind mostly behaved and left me to get on with riding 🙂

Name Decal’s orderd

Well name chosen and Decal ordered from  Velo Ink only $8.99 will be on the bike in a few weeks 😉

Alps to Ocean the Final Day

On to the Pacific

Kurow to Duntroon 23 km in 46 minutes, I went up hill quicker than I went down hill yesterday, with a full head wind fixed firmly behind me I was flying ✈ but I knew it couldn’t last as at Duntroon I had to do a “Right turn Clyde”.

That put me head on to the wind and back to reality of 5 Kph and walking up Hills again, the day that just got longer than expected.
If the shortest route is a straight line then the run in to Oamaru is the futherest thing from that and the map I have I had to give up on as it was not possible to follow the route due to the maps scale and the fact that the trial is not marked as it has be made through farm land.

The route was made harder as in places as this is a new route which is still being developed and the surfaces in parts are still settling in so are very soft in places so sometimes it’s like riding through sand so quite tough going.

However they have managed to send you through some pretty special country on your way to the Ocean so hats of to the team which have developed this ride.
half way through the day you have to go through a tunnel it’s not so long but it’s not straight and you do need light’s to get through as it is totally black inside.
Ha! Got this one covered it is part of the reason I haul the extra weight of a hub dynamo so I have a super bright head light 💡 So I stopped just short of the tunnel turn on the light and ride in with supreme confidence that I have no problem.

Wrong, almost instantly the world went black and I was plunged in to darkness, must be a problem with my lights so I stopped to check it out, and out went my lights now I am in total darkness as the stand light on my light had not had time to be charged as I had only switched it on a few moments earlier, it was quite funny scary to watch the last remaining light in my world go out and be totally consumed by the dark. Luckily I knew my head torch🔦was in my bar bag so I had to fumble through the accumulated crap in my bag to find it. Happy 🙂 to have light again I peddled on realising that my eyes had started to adjust and there was light at the end of the tunnel, guess my lights were working fine just my eyes could not  keep up with the transition from light to dark so quick.

Really strange day windy as hell but super sunny but stormy too. I thought I had seen all the weather had to offer today but I was wrong it delivered a final offering of hail just for good measure, but I didn’t care as I was 20 km from Oamaru and closing at a snails pace 🐌 due to the wind. The final ride in takes you on an old railway line and on to the towns parks and gardens, then through the old and some what quirky town of Oak before presenting you the finish line of the Pacific Ocean and the end of the ride and of the roads, next land from here would be Antarctica and Scott base. Great ride 300 km in 5 days Alps to Ocean completed. 🙂

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