The Mighty Moerangi Track

One of the boys organised a full on shuttle drop so that we could ride the Moerangi Trail in the Whirinaki (pronounced Firinaki) Forest. Good lad, that Paul!

We were picked up at 8am by Lisa, an ex pro downhiller and former member of the New Zealand national BMX team, so we knew we were in great hands. The drive to the trail head took about er, an hour or maybe two. To be honest I wasn't paying much attention as the banter in the bus and Lisa's interjections made the time simply fly by.

Eventually we were in the middle of nowhere at the trail head and ripping our bikes off the snazzy bike trailer.

We were given a quick brief (brief brief?) on the 36km (23mi) trail. We were also given a mobile phone that would work from just a few select locations (read-helicopter pad on top of a big arse hill!) if we needed a rescue or a Nutella sandwich or something. Paul paid close attention to this brief and put the phone safely in his Camelbak.

Soon enough we were off into the wilds, not quite sure what we would experience. I was thinking that a 36km ride was barely justifiable distance-wise and that we should have been doing something a bit more worthy, but then again, I had not had a peruse of the elevation profile.....

We were soon riding along gorgeous single track through ancient forest and all thoughts of distance versus time and effort equations were banished from my mind. This place was effing beautiful!

There were nice flat sections, some sweet downhill sections and some brutal uphill bits. On one of these uphills the boys learnt the hard way not to tailgate too closely. One rider stopped because of the slope, then the next hit his back wheel, unclipped the wrong foot and went arse-over-tit about 8 feet down the hill side! The only saving grace was that the rider (lets call him "Paul") managed to snag a palm tree otherwise he would still be falling now! The following photo doesn't do the hillside justice. "Paul" is over 6 ft tall and you can just see the blue of his shirt on the left of a concerned Brett. 

Note to self, "Don't fall over edges here!"

Meandering along there were so many different sections of trail. Here I stopped to snap a waterfall on the other side of the creek. I was really getting into the "vibe" of the ride now.

This ride was all about taking in the amazing scenery and not just whizzing along some sweet single track....as sweet as it was.....

We soon came to the first of three hiker's huts along the track. There were three guys on a maintenance detail cutting the grass here. that also explained why the trail was nicely groomed so far. Something that we would miss with the riding that lay ahead.

From here onward the trail was quite overgrown. You needed to be careful not to lose an eye to the ferns and random sticks poking out. Once these trail care crews get through the trail though, these hazards will be greatly reduced and the average speed of riders can safely increase. One thing we quickly realised on this trail was that it wasn't a balls-out bike park. We were in the middle of nowhere and if we hurt ourselves help was a long way off, so everyone rode pretty sensibly...considering it was a bunch of blokes on MTBs!

We had been following and crossing a creek the whole way so far. We slowly began to climb away from the creek, but continued to follow it. What I mean is that the trail was about a metre (yard) wide and the drop off into the creek was growing to over a hundred feet in places. Now THAT grabs your attention! It was all rideable and hey, it wasn't as bad as the several thousand foot drops of the Porcupine Rim Trail in Moab, but the end result would be the same if you screwed up and unclipped the wrong side!!

There were a lot of trees down across the track as the NZ Department of Conservation had built the trail, but like many other land managers worldwide, failed to see the need for regular maintenance. As I said before, this was now finally starting to happen and by the time anyone reading this wants to ride(or walk) the trail, it will be sweet.

The forest is just so lush and dense that you could almost imagine that great prehistoric dinosaurs might come crashing through the undergrowth to snack on sweaty, grubby little mountain bikers. As long as I was in the right gear at the time, they would get a run for their money!

We stopped lots. And lots. The guys were a bit fatigued from our Redwoods and W2K shenanigans, plus we just wanted to look at our surroundings. Did I mention they were effing beautiful? Oh yeah, I think I may have!

The lads stopped to fill their bottles from a bustling little stream while I took more photos.

Once we finally reached the top of the biggest climb we took a breather at one of the hill top helicopter landing pads. One of the ones the phone would work from. Instead of ordering in 16 large pizzas and a couple of slabs of beer like sensible blokes, we nibbled on our dwindling stock of museli bars and talked shit, excited that the trail was now about to point DOWN.

Indeed, it did go down. It went down at a very steep angle so that much of the fun descent was turned into brake dust while trying to stay on the trail and avoid a serious eye-gouge from a prehistoric palm. There we also lots of trees down across the track and in one spot, almost no track!

This slip had relegated us to walking the down bits as well! Personally, I was a bit disappointed with the descent as it was so knarly on a 120mm travel XC bike that it wasn't fun. Simon though, on the 150mm travel Specialised (a hire bike, so very fast!) was loving it! I guess once you get to know the trail it would be a quicker descent, but you need to keep the remoteness of this trail in the front of your mind.....

In the last few km the boys were starting to tire a bit. I made it a personal challenge to ride every climb and so rode away a bit. This gave me time to stop at turns for lots of photos with the new point and shoot camera. I bought a Canon S100 to replace my much loved IXUS 970IS that died in San Fran last month. It doesn't have some of the features that made the IXUS so indispensable, but it does have a lot more manual control so should be more flexible once I learn how to use it.

The last few km were a real hoot as the trail became more predictable. Simon had got his second wind on the Specialised rental and I had a ball trying to chase him out of the forest.

We finished the ride in a smidge over 5 hours and were looking to jump straight into the shuttle and head for Rotorua.

Only problem was the shuttle wasn't there. "They won't be long" we told each other. "We are paying for a service here" some grizzled. Which we were. And getting cold.

 When you are in a service related industry like ours, we have very low tolerance for poor service, especially within one's own business. Ask any airline employee who is the harshest critic of the company's service and you will no doubt be told, "The Pilots"(amongst other baseless, scurrulous lies).

The shuttle turned up about 45 minutes later and the guys honestly looked dismayed. They asked how long we had been waiting and the golden question, "Why didn't you call us from the chopper pad?" Yes Paul, why didn't we call them from the chopper pad?! Due to a misunderstanding with our telecommunications officer, we hadn't made the call in for our pick up! D'oh!!

We were loaded up in record time and the silence on the drive back to Rotorua was testament to the toughness of the ride. Everyone was flaked out, but someone had to stay awake and talk to Lisa ;)  The link to the shuttle company is here. We didn't get any discount and we have no association. They are just good people.

The Whirinaki Forest was one of the rides I missed out on doing last time I was in Rotorua, so I was extremely pleased to be able to finally ride this amazing trail. If you get the chance to visit the region make sure it is on your "must ride" list.

From The Forest To A Beach...Of Sorts

On Monday we decided to jazz things up a little by driving across to Taupo to ride the famed W2K trail. Well, famed in my mind anyway. It is one of my favourite rides in NZ as it actually goes somewhere. That somewhere is from Whakaipo Bay To Kinloch by way of a headland on Lake Taupo.

I was designated driver for the trip. With zero navigational preparation we launched off toward Taupo with just my memory as a map. After all, I had been here about 18 months previously. What could possibly go wrong? Apart from the obvious? Yup, I was finding navigating from memory a little sketchy and after an extra 30km(19mi) or so of "scenic roads" we eventually found the jumping off point at around midday, where we quickly kitted up and pedalled off.

After a very pleasant sheep paddock crossing we were at the step over and onto the sweet trail.

It was going to be interesting to see the other guys reaction to the ride today as most were relatively new to mountain biking and really only rode "bike park" where you basically go round and round in circles over the same (usually boring) trails. 

This was a trail that went somewhere. To lunch, I was hoping, as I hadn't bothered to check if the shop would be open at the other end......remember, it isn't an adventure unless something goes wrong....!

Team Trek* were soon belting along the trails having a ball. So much so that I really didn't take many photos  as we went along. I had taken so many the last time I was here that I didn't feel the urge, plus the lighting wasn't great at mid day. No, we were on a mission to get to the Kinloch Cafe.

Soon enough we were at Kinloch and luckily for me, sampling some fine toasted sandwiches and surprisingly good coffee as we sat under a gloriously blue sky and listened to the waves on Lake Taupo lapping at the volcanic grit that formed a black silica beach.

One of the guys had an old Giant Trance that was serviced once each decade and it hadn't been this decade's turn yet. Not surprisingly it had popped it's seat on the ride into Kinloch and we were on the hunt for a new seat bolt. Luckily for us there was a well kitted out marine supply store in town. Even luckier, it was run by a boat/dirtbike/mountain bike mad bloke who couldn't do enough to help us out in our spot of bother.

With a seat in the right position and some serious piss taking of the owner/rider we were off back past the marina and heading for the trail again.

The climb out of Kinloch with a full stomach was a slow and steady affair as I wasn't the only one to gorge myself on fine Kiwi grub. 

The upside to this was being able to stop lots and admire the view on such a pleasantly cool day. Shame someone got his boof-head in the way of said view!

On the ride back we decided to take the headland track which added about 10km (6mi) extra to the ride. I was pleased on two counts here. One was that I hadn't ridden that track before and the other was that another 10km would make it a decent ride.

Shortly after heading down this track our "serviced sometime last decade" bike decided to break it's chain. When we went to help fix it there was no wondering why. It was so old and stretched it should have been binned years ago. While rejoining it for the owner I noticed his rear wheel flopping around in the drop outs. Closer inspection revealed the bearings were extremely loose. When I tightened them a bit they were so pitted that they would barely turn! So finding that "sweet spot" of not to tight /not too loose we refitted his wheel and were off again. I mentioned that he should change gears gently and not put too much power into the pedals lest the chain explode again. The answer to this was a predictable "yeah, thats what happened last time".

Anyway, we powered along for a while on some fun, flowing trail before we came to a lookout with a nice bench seat overlooking the lake.

 In the distance was a snow covered mountain that was steaming a bit. We were later informed it was the Whakapappa (pronounced Fukapuppa) ski fields up on Mt Ruapehu. It was a  reminder of the volcanic nature of New Zealand. The massive lake in front of us was the result of an equally massive volcanic eruption. One day it will all go off again but if you are standing here you won't need to worry for too long! Clearly, we are made of hard stuff......

Some of the boys were getting a little tired by this stage due to the riding on previous days but the tired legs were quickly forgotten as the trail flowed so well we were soon spinning our legs faster than they should go.

Back at the van there was a bunch of very tired but happy riders. Time to head into Taupo for some more food and refreshment.

While in Taupo we learned that it was Guy Fawkes night that night. With Oztralia being the nanny state that it is, we have not had "cracker night" at home for about 20 years. Something about kids blowing their thumbs off or their neighbour's mail boxes to bits and we were banned from fireworks as a nation. But not the Kiwis! 

So, we did the only sensible thing. We bought the biggest-ass box of fireworks that we could. The one that said "Demolition Box" on the side!

We took said box back to our motel in Rotorua and introduced it to a radio controlled quad-copter that one of the guys had brought along to shoot some aerial video. Although, we were going to be doing another sort of shooting! You have sure got to love the mix of a few beers, some big Roman Candles and a quad copter!

Dodgy video at a later stage..............

*Team Trek. Though we hadn't ridden together before we found that there were four Trek Fuel EX 8 and 9s between us.

The Ride So Far

After a bit of rain Saturday afternoon it was all systems go again on Sunday.

60km and 2000m climbing? Yes please.

Today we are off to Taupo for a roll along the W2K trail.

See you after that.

Sneaking Into Aotearoa

This morning I managed to sneak into the Land Of The Long White Cloud. Again....

I like this place and I will be calling where the skinny red arrow is pointing to, home for the next week. Yup, the Redwood forests of Rotorua will be ringing to the melodic sound of Aussie voices and the pubs tinkling with the sound of our loose change for the next week.

Look Out!