Not the TT2000 Part Four

After the seal only adventure of the previous day, now it was time to go in search of gravel...

Tuesday started fairly leisurely for us.  After leaving the motel we fuelled up the bikes and then crossed the road to Nana Ni's for a hot meat filled pastry product.

Worms satiated, it was on the bikes and East to Spring Creek before our first little taste of gravel on the Western side of the Maruia River so that we could visit an old friend from a previous TT.

Popping back out onto the seal for a wee while, we rode North towards Murchison before turning off  to the East to take in the Maruia Saddle.  This is a neat, if a bit slow (except for the great gravel into Murch after crossing the saddle) ride through some nice bush with just a few small fords to cross.

On this day it was also a lot busier than last time with a group of 4WD's and some cyclists coming the other way.

Once off the saddle the road opens out a lot more and a very nice pace can be set.  It was fairly dusty though and I had to let Colin get quite a fair way ahead of to keep out of his dust.

In Murchison it was time for another wee stop to check out a cafe and its inhabitants.

Leaving Murch, we were soon off the main road again and in search of gravel.  The Braeburn Track provided this and after a pretty quick trip across it we were soon lakefront at Lake Rotoroa and sandfly heaven.

And it was time to break out the new toy.

It got a bit hard to concentrate on flying the thing towards the end as I was getting eaten alive...

Leaving the lake, we made our way back to the main road and then down to St Arnaud for fuel and an unpleasant discovery.

Somewhere after Reefton (possibly on the Braeburn) the steering stem nut on the S10 had disappeared!  To say that it gave me a scare is an understatement - I thought the ride was all over.  Luckily I had a Colin with me and even luckier the servo had some Knead It on the shelf.  Colin sorted out the repair and we decided to ride up the road a little to see if it would hold - plans of crossing The Rainbow going on hold for a bit.

We rode up to the Rainbow turn-off and all seemed well, so we started on the first part of the Rainbow to the Doc gate where you hand over ya access money, crossing a few streams along the way and determined that the repair was handling it so handed over our cash and carried on.

Feeling a little better about the repair (but still attempting to avoid the worst of the bumps) we carried on and got stuck into enjoying a superb ride.

We even stopped to try out the follow-me feature of the drone...and failed miserably...

Further up the road we turned off the Rainbow to go and check out Lake Tennyson.

Back onto the Rainbow, we were onto some faster gravel and enjoyed a nice run through to Hanmer where it was time for a pretty late lunch and to search for some accomodation somewhere down the road.

We eventually booked some in Rangiora and had a pretty sedate cruise down there followed by a nice chat with a couple of (bike riders not on their bike) lawyers staying at the same motel.  A great day on the bikes taking in some great gravel and outstanding scenery!

Not the TT2000 Part Three

Next up on our magical mystery tour was a bit of roadie so that we could run the big girls over some favourite gravel further up the island.

The first day of this adventure began with a trip up the West Coast and ending in Reefton where we knew there would good pies to be had...

Leaving Wanaka, we had a real blast through to Makarora and onto Haast.  The roads were perfect and once the pace was set that was pretty much it unless we caught up to slow traffic.  The only issue we had was both collecting birds on our way out of Makarora.

I dunno what the birds were but there were brown  and a fair bit larger than your average sparrow or even magpie.  I caught my one first.  It flew out of the scrub and hit me on the upper arm (felt that) and chest before disappearing off in a cloud of feathers.  Just before it hit me, I caught a glimpse of brown and was really concerned that it was a hawk and that I was going to have to fight it while it was in my lap...

Colin scored his one a split second later and in about the same way.  Feathers everywhere...

Onto the Coast proper, the ride up from Haast in the great weather was also a 10/10 but we had to add a little more excitement to our day somehow...

After a stop in Fox for an ummm, pie, we decided to carry onto Franz for fuel as there was still plenty in the S10's tank.  Arriving in Franz, we hit the forecourt of the servo only to discover that we could have as much diesel as we wanted but no petrol...bummer...

I quickly consulted the GPS and it lied to me in saying that the closest fuel was 62km away in Harihari.  This was a bit of a relief as I knew I could make that easy.

But then we had some more luck.  There was fuel in Whataroa (and I reckon I already knew that from the last trip but maybe hadn't got Whataroa's location right in my head - was it before or after Harihari?) so we stopped there, filled up and all of Colins Christmases came at once...

Yes, that is 2kg of jet planes, hopefully there will be some left on our next ride...

That excitement over the rest of the day was spent cruising past a lot of the checkpoints on our TT2000 plan and into Reefton for the night.  The motel even had a little reminder of where we'd come from:

Not the TT2000 Part Two

After an excellent but wearying day at the trail ride, Sunday started off a bit slower and Tim planned a road trip with us to go and visit the log cabin he is building.

The road trip involved riding the big bikes from Wanaka to Ohau, but, Tim entered tour guide mode and took us on a little side trip up above Bendigo to some abandoned gold mines and mining buildings. 

It was really interesting wandering around and looking at the falling down buildings and the mine shafts themselves.  Naturally I took quite a few photos and rather than post each one I got Google to make up a wee slideshow - not sure about the music though...

Click the below pic to open the slideshow in a new window.

The shafts were fairly incredible and we spent a bit of time dropping stones down and waiting (for quite a few seconds) to hear them hit the bottom.  Here we see Colin dicing with death above a wee hole of a mere 200m depth...

History/Physics lesson complete we remounted the bikes and Tim led us off to Omarama for a late lunch and a very nice, fresh from the oven, pie.  Mmmm, pie.

Then it was off to Ohau, which is a really neat little place maybe 10-15km off the main road.  A hidden wee gem that most people drive ride right past...

Once in Ohau, we went and visited the neat log cabin that Tim is building and Tim collared Colin for some landscaping advice.  No pics of the house for privacy but it is a massive work of art built by a bloke who had to learn everything on the job and build it in his spare time.  Be great to revisit once she's all finished.

On the way out we stopped for more pictures and Tim showed us the remnants of the hand dug boundary line between Otago and Canterbury.  Apparently someone just drew a straight line on a map without caring about any obstacles and gave some chaps a spade...First pic has some details...

The rest of the ride back to Wanaka was relatively spirited and we got back in plenty of time to join Kelly at the local pub for tea.

She's a pretty classy establishment but allows all types by the looks of the cars in the carpark...

And so ended a pretty relaxed but interesting day 🙂