Working out

 So after a sedate cruise on Saturday, it was time to get dirty again on Sunday.

Colin was keen to cut loose on his quad again so reasonably early on Sunday I loaded up the RMX and cruised down to his place where there was coffee. 

Arriving at the Maungakotukutuku Road carpark we unloaded and then took off up main track.  We had plans of investigating a number of different tracks but arriving at the top of the hill we hit a road block (if we'd really tried we could have actually hit a Dodge Ram) and important people in hi-viz.

On our way to disappointment

We soon discovered that the tracks were closed to public access as there was a silly bicycle race on.  Would have been nice to have had a sign at the carpark...

Disappointed, we about-faced and trundled off in search of some other tracks that we might be able to access.  Instead of looking for a track, Colin just turned off into the scrub...

Well, actually, it was an old overgrown track and we set about investigating where it went.  Eventually it got quite overgrown and pretty tricky for Colin to maneuver in so he sent me off to check out whether it was worth pursuing.

You can see some of this exploring in the first video below.  I eventually stopped after crossing one log safely (but hitting the bash pad on it) and then coming to another much bigger one that would have been difficult to get back over if I needed to turn around.

I then had to somehow turn the bike around in the scrub.  This involved getting it hooked up on trees, nearly dropping it, stalling it and some vigorous sweating.  Adding to the fun was that the starter didn't seem to want to play ball all day so I had the added fun of having to kick over a hot bike...

After making my way back to Colin, we decided to take another track off in a different direction.  Once again this got fairly gnarly and not long after passing Colin the poor old bike started getting a bit hot and bothered so I parked it up and we had a breather for a bit.

After our breather we continued on down and things didn't really improve.  After crossing a muddy ditch I looked ahead and only saw trees so turned around to go and find Colin attempting to squeeze through some fairly small gaps.

It took a bit of effort (and some forest realignment) to get the quad turned around and then we high-tailed it out of the mess.

Getting out on the main track, it was great to try out a few more gears and get a bit of breeze over me and the radiators but Colin did lead me off onto one more side track.  This one was a bit shorter and ended in a very steep descent where someone managed to stuff up, stall and dismount their Suzuki.  Never mind, at least I was able to crash start the beast...

Back at the carpark, we turned back up the road and went in search of some other tracks along the river.  It turned out there were quite a few that led you in and out of the river and into some mud holes etc.  A quick play in there and it was time for lunch...

Ah yes, I brought along my own chef...

Coffee and sizzlers scoffed we got back into it, following the river and searching for more tracks until we ran into the law - well some council blokes I 'spose - who discouraged us from riding in the river.  No probs, we weren't there to destroy the place, but also no signage and plenty of tracks...

A quick return blat down the gravel road and then the bikes were loaded up and we were outta there.  The only thing left to do was to go see a man about a water blaster...

Always take a chef and experienced blaster master with you on dirt rides...

So, a bit disappointing that we couldn't quite do the ride we wanted but a lot of fun anyway and a real workout in that tight stuff - my arms and shoulders definitely felt it and a hot shower was pretty damn good at the end of the day.