: Riding The Long White Cloud

By: g | No Comments » |

Our first sight of New Zealand caused the aircraft to momentarily roll to one side as we both scrambled to peer nervously out the window, the wingtips almost touching the Southern Alps. A fresh dusting of spring snow spread like ice cream over mountaintops and foothills as the plane dropped across the rich texture of the Canterbury Plains, shaking and rattling our precious mountain bikes down in the cargo bay with every air pocket. The excitement bubble was about to pop as we contemplated riding new trails in an astonishingly different landscape to our familiar Blue Mountains.

Getting our first taste of Kiwi soil at Bottle Lake Forest at Christchurch just made us weep for more. Unlike Aussie production forests and most national parks, we came to learn that mountain biking in eNZed forests is proactively supported in spectacular fashion. A popular destination for club night races, Bottle Lake single track twists and turns through a maze of roller coasters, berms and loops of up to thirty kilometres through the pine trees. You can spend hours here finding new places to get totally disorientated and maybe just end up on the beach gazing back in amazement at snow covered hills hugging Christchurch.

After riding the city�s parks, gardens and malls, we chugged off southwards in the mighty Maui campervan, christened the Bush Pig because of its delightful gearbox. Lake Tekapo became the first of many alpine lake vistas that burnt like acid into our memory bank, with omnipresent Mt Cook just blowing our pathetic Mt Kosciuzsko off the grandeur map. Try a chopper flight around Mt Cook and you will want to forget all about riding, well, at least for an hour. If it’s running, the heli pilots at nearby Twizel can also offer a quick flight to the top of one of the local peaks, then it’s up to you to get you and your bike back in one piece, at extreme pace.

Queenstown offers an amazing amount of hardcore riding, with some of the local downhill terrors more than capable of putting Thredbo’s Cannonball Run to shame, and they are smack in the centre of town. In fact, Queenstown might just be the centre of the adrenalin junkies universe due to the huge range of extreme sports available like bungy jumping, rafting, heli skiing and jet boating to name but a few. We satisfied our thrill quota, then ventured out from Queenstown following the Kennett Bros classic NZ ride guide for the Moke Lake Circuit, a demanding little thirty three kilometre epic remarkably under graded for it’s technical difficulty and plain scary single track.

We knew we were in for it when, at the half way point, we met two very jaded foreign riders travelling in the opposite direction. They had struggled for over four hours to cover less than fifteen vertical kilometres. With ominous snow clouds gathering, they uttered simply in universally understood language about our chances of reaching Queenstown before dark: “you are fucked”. Things deteriorated very rapidly as we ignored their doubts and pressed on as daylight faded. Grappling with hypothermic thoughts that we may end up bivvying, the sheer remoteness and scale of the trip weighed heavily; this was no doddle through the Oaks ride back home. The narrow meandering mountainside path had recorded a bike death just before our little excursion and indeed the exposure from deadly drops and towering snow capped peaks made the beer taste even better as we celebrated success late that evening.

A friendly hand from the local bike shop at Queenstown resulted in some fresh suspension bushes and some local tips for our next hugely fun single track rides along the shores of Lake Wakatipu to Sunshine Bay and the Arawata grade three plus track. Short tricky climbs and sharp descents, curling downhills and views that you never want to leave behind reward you for your efforts. Just remember to pack insect repellent, for even in spring, the sand flies were out in force anywhere close to the water.

Our biking then took us to Wanaka and the Outlet trail, an extensive network of single track that delights with its gnarly hardcore perfectly married to some easier tracks along the surging Clutha River. There is something for everyone here and you can spend hours grinding away in xc mode, or flipping out in freeride extreme dude heaven. The duallie flatted four times on our circuit, so the Intense tyre got tossed and a friendly bike store guy sold us a Panaracer, which, remarkably, stood up to the rest of eNZed.

The Bush Pig pushed us into wearing our race face as we lurched from hairpin to hairpin across Haast Pass to the wild weather of the west coast. Fox and Franz Joseph glaciers are a must see, even if the bikes stay snuggled up in their bike bags in the over cab double bed. Onwards to Hokitika and Greymouth where some great riding can be had, but alas our bikes refused to come out to play in the gale driven rain. Never in Oz will you see waves that start two kilometres out to sea, with beaches amassed with metres deep wind blown sea foam. West coast riders must indeed be a hardy lot.

After checking out rides around Abel Tasman National Park, back country huts were next on the agenda as we found some sunshine and clipped in for a spin up the Hackett Valley, near Richmond, to the Hackett Hut. Only Kiwis know how to have fun with prime tracks like this. Suspension bridges, insane traverses across scree slopes, riding ledges atop canyons, Hansel and Gretel trees everywhere; it’s almost too much diversity for us Hawkesbury sandstone riders! Our grind to the hut was blessed with thousands of annoying sandflies biting at anything resembling pink, but an extremely fast getaway down several hundred vertical metres back to the Bush Pig at the Roding River recreation reserve campsite made our tails wag with excitement.

Queen Charlotte’s track from coastal Anakiwa to Te Mahia, near Picton, mercilessly tore our lungs out as we pedalled forever uphill in the filthiest mud the South Island could throw at us. We covered only a fraction of the multi stage track, but joined a few locals in the sliding, fun, hoot of a huge downhill back to the van, ending up splattered from head to foot in mud. Towering tree ferns cast their dark shadows across the wet trail; the speed was madness as we bunny hopped onto countless wooden bridges and over slippery tree roots, desperately trying to avoid the ever-present drop to nowhere off the verge of the hillside track. Never needed to shower fully clothed with our bikes before, until this ride!

Jumping over to the North Island left us with only a week to lick the perfume off the neck of a great body of rides that are there to be enjoyed. We just couldn’t do it justice with the time we had, alongside rafting and black water caving.

The bikes got cranked out in the inevitable rain for the Tongariro River track, about forty-five minutes drive south of Lake Taupo. Although short, its sweet single track flows enjoyably alongside the river and traces the edge of farmland all the way down to the village of Turangi. By contrast, the Craters of the Moon outside Taupo offers some totally choice curly track that meanders through a thermally active area with boiling mud holes belching objectionable aromas into the air. Although the tracks are in logging areas, the network available offers a range of nice, short and easy (five kilometre) loops to nasty, long and viciously hard spins (up to twenty five kilometres); all of the tracks we did bermed, jumped and bmx’d us into pine tree heaven!

On the southern outskirts of Rotorua, we gave the thumbs up to Whakarewarewa (yeah, we couldn’t pronounce it either!). The Kennett Bros guide rightly refers to this purpose built mountain bike trail network as the “Disneyland of mountain biking”, with a selection of trails graded in difficulty from easy to hmmm, get off and walk, it’s safer! The orange arrowed Challenge trail meanders around for over twenty kilometres and is reputedly the twistiest single track in the country; take plenty of power bars. The grade three Circuit trail headed out on grey arrows, basically resembling a four kilometre long bmx track, which was such a hell of a lot of fun, it made us grin like a pair of devils finding a true sinner.

Alas the boundless list of other rides in the excellent Kennett Bros guide will have to wait for next time. This little journey of only three weeks duration managed to cast a spell on us that will leave us floating in our own happy juice forever. Friendly people, amazingly spectacular ride scenarios and a country that is just made in heaven for mountain bikers! Sweet.

Hodgie

(A special thanks to Helen for the inspiration and also a cool mention to the guys at Blackman Bicycles for their pre trip work on the treadlies. Oh, and a nod to the fat hippy for watering our plants)

 

Tags:freeride,new zealand,suspension


Share the love...?



Tweet

Leave a Reply...

You must be logged in to post a comment.