Return to the South 2021

The final day of our trip lived up to my hopes. Last year we were unable to do the Rainbow road and so I was quite keen to do this 100km road from Hanmer to St Arnaud. I first heard of it 20 years ago when they used to run a mountain bike race along its length. It fully exceeded my expectations for both incredible beauty as well as fun riding that seemed to get better the further north we went. The coffee stop at Lake Tennyson  must be one of the better settings on the trip. Perfect weather to round it off.  Beyond that a bit of melancholy as we approach our return to real life, balanced for me by looking forward to catching up with Jennie and the boys.  So it is time to finish the final episode of one of the best trips of my life, which is setting the bar high as I have been fortunate to have had some good ones indeed.  Thanks to Dave Lear who helped plan the trip. Many hours of pondering what has been a big project, from being prepared to also buy a KTM 500exc and ...

The transport day north through Canterbury started with low cloud and drizzle. Dave Mac seemed happy enough with his heated grips, windscreen, cruise control and all sorts of electronic gadgetry to keep him comfortable and upright in the wet slippery conditions. I at least had warm winter waterproof gloves so I took some comfort from knowing that Dave Lear was suffering more than me, with his thin summer gloves. Corners were scary with the usual glassy bleeding tar seal and the knowledge that at any time there was only a square inch of rubber in contact with the road. To be honest, back in road mode, my mind was taken off the conditions by a 500cc piston hammering my perineum 5000 times per minute.  We rode from coffee to coffee with some time to reflect on things. For me that was a little scene that played out while we were having breakfast. There was a young couple posing for photos in the car park. I’m quite up to date with the modern world so I immediately knew they were influe...

We left Cromwell in quite chilly conditions, compliments of an overnight southerly change. The plan was to ride Thompson’s gorge track but we would access it a little South of the main road turn off. This involved a little bit of navigation and at least one discussion as to whether “no public access “ applied to us. My reasoning was that I would not be seen in public with the 2 Dave’s and therefore it couldn’t apply to us. After making our way cross country through a few paddocks, mildly relieved not to find any locked gates and even more relieved not to find any angry farmers we got onto the track. We climbed up into the cloud quickly and were soon riding in heavy fog or light rain, I am not sure which. It’s a great track and drops down from above 1000m near St Bathans where we had a coffee at the old hotel. Then back into the mountains, still in low cloud, towards the Omarama saddle via the east branch of the Manuherika river. This is a really fun track with a few river crossings and...

If I was going to pick a day for rain then this would have been it. We intended a shorter day with a view to some recovery after a couple of bigger days and another lined up for tomorrow. Dave Lear and myself had started up a 4 wheel drive track to boundary hut beyond the Mavora Lakes last year but had to turn back to catch a ferry to Queenstown across lake Wakatipu. With no ferry running this year we thought we could go to the hut as an out and back trip. The Mavora lakes are incredibly beautiful, set in beech forest in a glacial valley. The rain just made it more atmospheric and we considered ourselves very fortunate to be there. The track to the hut runs in the deep sand next the lake, dipping in and out of the forest and is just the most incredible fun to ride with lots of line choices. I managed to set the tone by beaning myself on a low hanging branch, not the first time in recent years. This one wasn’t too bad but I was almost ejected off the back of the bike and had a lengthy a...

We arrived at Mossburn after another fantastic day. I’ll get back to that in a minute though. More importantly, we were quite relieved to find that there were laundry facilities and also that we had arrived early enough to use them. My feet have suffered but they tend not to complain. On the other hand, and I have to give them credit for being smarter than I thought, my nuts were beginning to complain. Turning your undies inside out doubles the lifespan but apparently turning them inside out again doesn’t reset things to pristine. So after 4 days.. well I really don’t need to go any further with this now do I? Picture if you will a forest of a different sort. We started off from Waikaia a little later than I originally intended. The ride up towards Old Man Range is beautiful, rising through beech forest on a winding little gravel road with the ever shrinking Waikaia river for company as we headed both upwards and northwards. Once above the tree line the track deteriorates into a rough,...

Naseby and Ranfurly are separated by 12km of straight road. If one is uncertain of where to go, there is a large mountain range behind Naseby that could serve as a land mark, visible from pretty much anywhere. So you might be surprised that the 3 world adventurers, all equipped with gps, managed to take about 40 minutes to find it. I could explain but it’s too painful. Once we did find Naseby we climbed up into the Hawksdun range on the Mt Buster track. This was always going to be a highlight for me with a big climb followed by a flowing double track full of hole and erosion mounds designed to play with. Dropping down into several crossings of Guffies creek and then the upper reaches of the Otematata river I was feeling quite vindicated in spending the children’s inheritance and education fund on the 500exc adventure project.  From there we climbed to over 1500m on Johnston’s creek track and the moonscape that is the top of the Hawksduns. Huge country. It’s both beautiful and intim...

Today had always been planned as a rest day. I’ve known Bernie long enough to recognise that one needs a little physical and mental recovery after doing a few days riding with him! We also had planned for today to be service day as the 500’s are not designed as  tourers and need an oil change every 1500km or so. A little more often than your car. So we had a slightly lazy 8am getaway with me feeling exhausted, not due to Bernie’s attentions but thanks to Dave Mac. Last night, just as I was hitting rem sleep I get woken by a cricket in the room. Then another. Then some kind of weird electronic whoosh. Before long a virtual cacophony of sound coming from his phone. It turns out that he needs to be alerted about any possible thing that happens on this planet. If someone farts in Beijing, his phone will notify him. Obviously all these alerts must be important because he simply slept through it all. He has been banished to his own room now.  So with that slightly hallucinogenic exh...

From Dave Lear this morning