Going back to my roots

Big River Hut to Ikamatua
31km ride/walk/scramble
Another beautiful day with the early inversion fog burning off by the minute. Awake at 6:15, nothing much to pack, bars and coffee for breakfast, so why did we only get on the road at 8:15?? Partly mopping the hut floor of someone else's muddy footprints, partly walking the long way down to the bikes to find the Waiuta Track sign: lucky we didn't just assume it was the boardwalk off to the left near the gate!
Initially the track was very rideable, pretty much as far as the boardwalk. This is narrow and unnecessarily, though picturesquely, windiing. We stopped and stepped off (reassuringly dry, not boggy...) for the obligatory selfie, this being a TA checkpoint. So I was concentrating hard on where my front wheel was pointing when I heard two exclamations from Marg: not screams or squeals or squalks, more anguished cries of inevitability. I looked up just in time to see she and her stationary bike tumble off the boardwalk. Fortunately the heathery growth provided a softish landing and no harm was done, apart from a deranged mudguard bracket that was soon fixed. Even the cable-tied computer stayed in place. I, of course, asked why, if she had time to shout twice she did not have time to put a foot down...
This really knocked Marg's confidence, so some possibly rideable stuff was walked. It didn't help that regularly you would round a blind corner to be presented with a rock-strewn root-fest. As Marg said, it's a tramping track that bikes use... Including a stream-bed section, of course! It's peppered with gold-mining relics, as it's a former miners' track: those guys were tough!
After about 5km we got to the track closure and 'temporary re-route' (or more accurately, re-root). Almost no track-making had been done, it was 100m straight up the forested hillside to the ridgeline, along for a while and then down a similar hillside back to the track... Basically bush-bashing with trail markers!! We had to drag our bikes up one at a time, one pulling and 'walking' the bike, the other pushing and lifting. And pretty much the same down the other side, except now braking like mad... After about 45 minutes we, two bikes and our single pannier were back on the track downstream of the slip. Exhausted, we decided to walk past the broken barrier to see just how much worse the 'dangerous slip' is now than when the two A's went through last year. Answer: not at all!! In fact possibly somewhat improved by a year's traffic. We think the detour is more dangerous than traversing the slip itself; if only we'd investigated first. In fact there were a couple of very narrow, gravelly bits after that that I think we're just as bad!
After a few more k's walking, the track widened and we rode more than walked until we rounded a corner to find a similarly impassable track gate as at the other end. Two differences: this one is wood, not metal; and some enterprising soul had taken an axe to the impossibly high top rail, meaning we only had to lift our bikes about 70cm over, not 1.2m! Here was stopped for lunch, and on continuing we arrived at the end of the track about 5 minutes later. On down a good 4WD track to a poor gravel road into the Waiuta ghost town. We decided that there's too much to see there to interrupt this trip but it is a must-see on a return by car. Marg did get a bit of a look around while she was waiting for me to make the 4.2km round trip back up the hill to recover her backpack from our lunch spot...
An easy downhill on good gravel saw us in Ikamatua before the hotel opened at 4, so a delicious ice cream and cup of tea at the store was in order: Deep South licorice, ice cream to die for!
If you are ever passing through Ikamatua, don't! Stop a while, whether for an ice cream, sandwich, coffee and chinwag at the store, or better still a night at the hotel and fantastic dinner in the bar. No fancy craft beers on tap (they know their market) but big platefuls of beautifully cooked food which are great value for money. Their surf'n'turf included the biggest scallops I've ever seen... We'll be back for sure.

Comments

  1. The Palmers Go KiwiJanuary 30, 2023 at 12:52 PM

    😱

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Palmers Go KiwiJanuary 30, 2023 at 12:54 PM

    All sound ominously familiar...although we didn't have the bush-bash-a-bike experience! (And we thought getting across the (fresh) slip was tough!) You earned your grub n beer that night, for sure!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Simon and MargJanuary 30, 2023 at 7:57 PM

      Gary cracked up when we told him we humped the bikes over the re-route. Told us 'everyone' has been told to cross the slip...

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What a difference a day makes...**

Arapuni to Mangakino 54.7km The sign could have said North. Cross the swing bridge and turn right to rejoin the Waikato River Trails NORTH. If they really want to be kind, they could even say turn right for North and turn left for South. Which is why we did a 2.8km loop around Arapuni before finally picking up the WRT in the right direction. We'd set off wearing our warm tops because the day had dawned bright and clear and chilly. By the time we'd wound our way through the single-track toward the dam, at the top of the final climb we had to stop and strip off. On over the dam, uphill the other side and on out into the farmland. Sudden stop by Marg. 'I don't have my gloves'. My offer to return the 3+km to where we'd disrobed was (thankfully) refused, and we continued, in discussion about where another pair of gloves could be sourced. While stopped I also posted on the TA FB page where we thought they were lost and where we are staying tonight. I was also hopeful
Read more

Sublime to ridiculous...

Image
...via a couple of hills Clevedon to Miranda Hot Springs 63.1km The problem with publishing what may be temporary instructions in a long-term document is that the user can never be sure if they still apply. Such was our dilemma leaving Clevedon (apart from wanting the stay forever at Karinya). On the one day between Auckland Anniversary holiday and a three-day closure of McNicoll and Otau Mountain Roads, would the log-trucks be taking a day off, or working flat-out while they could? At home we'd previously decided to take the weekday alternate route up the Ness Valley, and we stuck to that choice. A wise choice as it happens, as the Kennetts' recommendation to avoid OMR on weekdays is actually an official prohibition to cyclists by Auckland Council. The day had a slightly inauspicious start when, after waking at 6 to get ahead of the forecast heat and later rain, one of us succumbed to a 'dicky tummy' and needed a little lie down while things settled somewhat. And befor
Read more

Into the abyss

Image
Hunterville to Apiti 65.6km Today looked like being a toughie, but not as tough as Steve & Jill were going to have it heading all the way to Ashurst via SH54. Lack of accommodation elsewhere, you see. Of course, it only occurred to us about 10km before Apiti that our AirBnB has two double rooms... The Station Hotel proudly announces that it has no self-service kitchen, and no food is allowed in the rooms. So we prepared our usual breakfast & lunch rolls outside on the pub tables. The facilities are otherwise fine, and the hosts welcoming to cyclists. We got away shortly before 9, leaving town on a quiet backwater street. Before joining the melee that is SH1, for about 5km. Actually, this was not bad at all: traffic was light, the shoulder 'adequate' as the Kennetts have it. Even on the uphill, all the traffic used the passing lane to pass us, we never had to contend with two drivers focussed on passing/being passed and thus paying less attention to slow-moving two yello
Read more