Category Archives: engineering

Bikepacking Waikaremoana – Wairoa to Rotorua

The possibility of riding between home (Napier) and Rotorua had been mentioned a couple of times at work by Steve and me. While not initially put off by the idea, the thought of doing over two-hundred kilometres of highway (the start hilly and quite narrow) in one day rather discouraged me. Then a cycle-tourist who stayed the night carried on north to Wairoa and then rode the Waikaremoana highway. This is a highway in the loosest sense of the word – winding its way through the rugged and remote Te Urewera National Park, it is mostly gravel, sees little traffic and there are few settlements along the way. It is, however, yet another beautiful part of the country.

Convinced of the brilliance of a two-day bikepacking trip through the area, I just had to bring Steve around to the idea of a lot of unsealed-road riding. Although he’d never been bikepacking or cycle-touring, it wasn’t hard to get Steve onboard with the promise of a big, new type of adventure. A representative triathlete, I was a bit worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up with Steve as he’s one of those people who is so unbelievably active, it’s tiring just thinking about it; also, with Steve’s sizeable dose of Fear-of-Missing-Out I shouldn’t have been surprised he was a surefire starter-for-ten for my mad (the general consensus around the office as our plans leaked out) idea.

Unfortunately, we didn’t even got to Wairoa on our first attempt as I, unusually, got ill just in time for New Year’s weekend. This worked out well, as the weather turned horrid over much of the North Island that long-weekend – I was glad not to be out riding in such weather and sleeping in a tent. All the details worked out well for a repeat attempt the following weekend, so off we set for Wairoa early that Saturday morning. Delightfully, the fabled Osler’s Bakery was just opening as we drove into town – steak and mushroom pies are OK at eight o’clock in the morning for second breakfast, aren’t they? It was already 24ºC as we emptied the car and got our bikes and luggage sorted. It was clearly going to be a hot day, but we had all day to do 120-odd kilometres and the breeze blowing into us wasn’t too strong as we headed north over the Wairoa River and turned inland.

It was all rather flat for quite a while as we went up the broad river valley.

I was pleased to find classic Tip Top ice cream and Fanta advertisements on the side of a long-since-closed corner store in Frasertown.

I’m sure this sign is to warn off inexperienced gravel-road drivers and people who expect state highways in NZ to be up to a much higher standard than some (read: most) of them are. For the bikepacker, this serves to add to the anticipation for lightweight travel through remote places; I was well pleased to see this sign.

It was still all smiles as we had plenty of practice taking photos while riding along. This a particularly good one of Steven’s thumb, and for a change I make a photographic appearance in my own blog.

The sealed road ended after about thirty kilometres, but the climbing up to Lake Waikaremoana didn’t start in earnest for another fifteen or so. Another advantage of not doing this trip the previous weekend, was a lack of public-holiday traffic. That being said, there was a fair few people returning from the lake with boats and caravans at the end of their holidays. But the surface was good and we never had a problem with the traffic. Even the persistent norwester wasn’t too much of a hindrance on such a fine day – it had more of a cooling effect than a slowing one.

Taking a slight detour off the highway, we began a little side-tour; that of the Waikaremoana Hydro Power Scheme. This the lowest of three small power stations linked together, all using water flowing from the Lake Waikaremoana.

Riding across the dam of the hydro lake at Tuai – the power station in the distance. Most of our riding was now surrounded by either water or vast expanses of native bush.

First swim stop of the day for Steve.

As is quite common, a small town (large village, really) was to be found near this hydro power scheme. This one, Tuai, obviously built for the construction of the dams & powerhouses and still looking in really good condition. Just a representative house that I happened to snap while riding past.

We rejoined the highway and the climbing continued, but never steeply. Here we look back down to Tuai.

We lost a bit of altitude taking another detour to the third power station, Kaitawa. These penstocks bring water down from Lake Waikaremoana after it’s travelled through a tunnel. It was at this point Steve suggested we should ride up there as a shortcut; I suggested he go jump in the lake while I had first-lunch.

A rather reflective sign about the power scheme: in case anyone still cares and so I can stop banging on about it so much.

Quite picturesque really, despite the infrastructure. We set off on a short walk around the lake, but it never opened up and gave us good access to or views of the lake. So we turned back.

Steve did take that second swim, while I enjoyed my bacon & egg pie from Osler’s. Only when he tried to get out of the tailrace, did Steve realise the walls were really quite high.

We did make it up the access road beside the penstocks – it did save a bit of backtracking distance and in our granny gears the 20+% gradient was OK.

After that steep climb, we were pretty much at lake (Waikaremoana) level after about five hours and sixty kilometres. From there it was undulating for seven kilometres around the lake edge to Home Bay and second-lunch. You may have noticed a bit of a theme here: not travelling solo meant taking a large tent, which somehow Steve ended up with (still didn’t really help me to tire him out). Which in turn meant I had a lot more room on my bike to carry delicious, and necessary, food.

Finally, more of Panekire Bluffs came into view – much as I remember them from my last visit to the area to do the three-day hike around the lake with Adele.

Once again it proved impossible to keep Steve out of the water – just a swim across Home Bay & back this time, about a mile. I sat under a tree and enjoyed the $80/kg pastrami from the store at the campground.

Following the north edge of the lake on pretty flat road (now with even less traffic than not-much), I was confident that we would easily make the saddle and highest point on the route well before we’d had enough for the day or run out of daylight.

When we rode over the bridge atop Mokau Falls, we didn’t even realise they were there – let alone, that they looked like this.

This was our final view of Panekire Bluffs, perhaps the best yet.

Heading away from the lake towards the saddle, it was a gradual climb up a gentle valley shaded by the dense bush on our left. Crossing from Hawkes Bay to Bay of Plenty it wasn’t long until the summit. While the route was an awful long gravel road, it was interspersed with short stretches of seal – mostly around settlements and on any steep hills. Over the saddle I was pleased that the steep descent was sealed – my cross tyres proving a bit sketchy on anything too loose and fast.

We’d heard much of wild horses all over the road once over the saddle. Here, our first sighting; also memorable as just past all those cars was our first being-chased-by-a-fierce-dog experience of the trip (something else we’d also be warned about).

We took the opportunity to fill water bottles at a derelict motel in Ruatahuna – I haven’t got sick yet – before a few kilometres up to where there was supposed to be a campground. At least I was hoping so, details were elusive online – I think it was once a DOC campsite, but no longer. Anyway, it was there with a picnic table, plenty of space, a toilet, the Whakatane River in its infancy and masses of persistent sandflies (a bit like Scottish midges, small bitey insects that attack by stealth [unlike mosquitoes]). Steve made camp and just for a change from lakes, got in the river for his fourth swim of the day while I whistled up the culinary delights that are freeze-dried meals.

What a fantastic day’s riding – great route, excellent scenery, lovely summer weather, plenty of food, good adventuring company and even a bit of engineering history. Well pleased and well worth the effort.

Our set-up for the evening, I probably should have been not still sitting down.

We even had blue ducks visit our campsite! An endangered species native to NZ, they feature on our ten dollar note/bill and I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before. Fortuitously, we didn’t even have to go searching for them, as they can be hard to find (obviously, they’re endangered & therefore rare) – they came to us.

A few of the locals dropped in for an evening graze.

After a warm, surprisingly restless night considering the previous day’s efforts it was a leisurely start to the day. Fueled up on porridge and many other snacks (jerky for breakfast? – if you’re going to carry excess food, you may as well eat it) we were on our way. The morning had cooled a fair bit and it was slightly cloudy too – just as well we started with an easy climb to warm us up again. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere, we came across a fair few people just walking along the otherwise deserted road. Rather odd, until we got to a rather small settlement with a marae.

Our gentle climb to start the day, just kept on going and turned out to take us to the highest point of the day – we were done with it within an hour and the road turned back to seal (mostly) for the screaming descent to the Minginui turn-off. And that was the gravel road riding done for the day – things weren’t quite so interesting as we got out of the remoter areas. Actually, things started to look vaguely familiar. When Dad was a dairy management consultant in the Bay in the ’90s, this area was on the outer edges of one of his patches. So when we stopped to talk to local roadies on their Sunday morning rides (not a cafe stop in sight out here), I recognised a fair few place names.

The steelwork of destroyed picnic tables makes for great bike-stands; here at the highest point of the second day – looking back over the Ureweras.

We stopped at this old service station shortly before Murupara to fill water bottles – we’d been warned about the dogs in town, so avoided that.

From Murupara it was a twelve or so kilometre climb up through boring plantation forest with fast-moving traffic into the wind. Definitely not with the pleasure of the previous day’s riding. Still, the closer we got to Rotorua the more familiar things seemed. We started passing places I remember from my first bike tour twenty years ago (crikey) – a school holiday camp.

It was strange seeing Mt Tarawera looming up from a different angle – but all the same, there it was.

We turned off the highway just before Rainbow Mountain and joined the Te Ara Ahi for our final stretch to Rotorua and Steve’s car. Stopping at Lake Okaro (a rather nice little lake I didn’t even know was there – there are many lakes in the area) to finish off the food for lunch, I was surprised that Steve didn’t have a swim. There’s a slim chance he was getting a little tired, but I think it unlikely. Heading west from Waimangu, we bore the brunt of a vigourous westerly – it was awful. But then the cycle trial turned for twenty kilometres of downhill to town – the wind didn’t matter so much then. I don’t recommend that cycle trail – it’s basically a concrete path right next to the highway: dead boring and quite horrible.

At least it was an easy finish to a most excellent adventure – with a bit of luck I’ve opened Steve’s eyes to the possibilities of exploring all sorts of places by bike. We got to Steve’s parents’ place, cleaned up, ate a bit more and filled the car.  Somehow we fitted in three bikes, all our touring luggage, some Christmas presents, two collapsible workshop benches and countless tools.

Volklingen Iron Works

[Content Advisory: Here follows a gratuitous amount of industrial history, associated photos and general talk of ironmaking. If that doesn’t interest you, too bad – it was the highlight of the trip so far. Yes, I know that that is quite sad.]

When I chose my camping spot for the night, I did not realise there was a chiming church clock just the other side of the river. Or a building site. Still, I slept well enough and had a pretty good gauge of the time each time I awoke. Eager to see it, or with nothing better to do, I was first through the gates at Volklingen Iron Works. I was quite nervous about leaving my bike unattended for so long with only a lock that serves only to thwart the opportunist thief. But the attendant assured me that it was quite safe, I suppose you don’t get a lot of thieves frequenting industrial museums early in the day. By the time I returned three hours later, there were many more bikes around – so mine was less conspicuous.

When they shut the plant (six blast furnaces and much more ancillary equipment) down in 1986, they really did just leave it. I couldn’t believe how much there is to see – I was fascinated and even though the multimedia presentation wasn’t in English, all the signs were, so it was easy enough to understand. You could wander around an awful lot without barriers getting in the way – obviously some areas are off limits as the platforms and walkways have decayed over time, but work continues. Donning a hardhat, you could even climb through forty-five metres of height up stairs (brought back a lot of memories of getting around the NZS Iron Plant) to the charging floor and then go even higher and get amongst the off-gas system.

The explanation of the process was very well done, and only later on in a hall under the burden room did you get to read/hear a few stories of what it was like to work there. I would have liked to have seen more of that – at one stage in the sixties, some 16000 people were employed making iron. Incredible to think; although each blast furnace only had the daily capacity of one NZS Melter (of which there are two). Well, obviously I loved my visit there – as shown by the fact I took so many photos. I will let some of them tell the rest of the story.

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Hoist controls in the inclined ore conveyor machine room.


I’d noticed these two hills the night before – completely different to any others in the region. I should have known that they are slag heaps from almost one hundred years of operation.

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Charging floor – the cars on the monorail used for feeding the furnaces.


Top of the inclined conveyor.


Off-gas system, part of.


Still an industrial town


More off-gas system.


The hood that is raised to charge five cars at a time into the furnace – there is another such bell cover further down to prevent the furnace gases escaping.

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Nature taking hold at height.


Work continues all around the site still – I was surprised by how much exactly. All to broaden the areas accessible to visitors.


Metal tap hole


Mud gun – used for closing taphole


Slag taphole

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Coke ovens – coke side


Coke ovens – machine side


Inclined ore conveyor, built in the 1910s – took the sintered iron ore up to the charging level. The main reason the plant could not be expanded to compete in the 1980s by making the furnaces larger (taller) is that this conveyor could not be heightened.


The charge cars used on the monorail system.

After all that excitement, the time available for riding was cut back substantially. It was a very easy eighty-odd kilometres. Mostly following the Saar upriver, stopping at a bakery in France somewhere before following the Blies upstream back into Germany. This turned into an old rail trail, sealed as they mostly are, so was rather quick – well, for my bike. There were many people out riding beside the river all afternoon. Which would be why there were multitudes of beer gardens backing on to the cycle routes. I stopped in at one for a drink and what turned out to be a strange rectangular pizza-like dish – very white & runny cheese, much onion and pancetta.

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The signs I’ve been following for three days.


A glorious evening to be out riding – sun setting on fields just cut for haymaking

Tomorrow, I should make the town where the TransVosges MTB route starts – it’s only fifty kilometres as the crow flies, but after my northern Luxembourg experience that could be quite hard work, although it’s not as hilly around here. I’ve enjoyed the last two days’ riding with no rain and occasional warmth; a bit of rain has fallen at night, so my tent is wet again – but, hey-ho. Hopefully the TransVosges has had a chance to dry out – I’ll shall have to see if it’s suitable for me.

Deeper into the Saarland

After a particularly poor night’s sleep, I was taken aback to find it almost nine o’clock before I got up. It was a still and clear, but very chilly, start to the day’s riding. I had better luck finding villages with open shops – so much so that first lunch was at 10.30. I think that I didn’t eat enough for yesterday’s 115 km – more bakery stops required. It was more of the same sealed trail through farmland – much easier to appreciate in the sun. Every so often I do remember to take a photo just so that I don’t forget it all in many, or a few, years’ time.

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While the scenery is nice, it doesn’t thrill me the same way as riding the North American West does. Thoughts throughout the day return to the still vague possibility of riding Tour Divide 2015. While I’m beginning to realise that open-ended solo bikepacking might not be best suited to me – I’ve always loved riding singletrack unencumbered and with good mates, not much of that is happening here – a crazy undertaking such as the Divide would be quite an achievement to work towards and be lighter-weight bikepacking with more of a purpose…

As I dwell on this the route enters forested areas much more and as, I assume, there are less tractors to churn up the paths they are now gravel and that is much better. I see a lookout ahead as I approach the top of a climb, the GPS shows two small lakes below it. I was rather underwhelmed. A big disused mine, a large power plant in the distance and some other factory off to the left.

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All through this trip so far I’ve been trying to remember much that I learnt about where I am from various high school and university history classes. I think, I’m sure someone will correct me below if I’m wrong, that the Saar was lost by Germany at Versailles and that was a blow as it was an industrial powerhouse – with coal and iron, & therefore steel predominating. I’ve noticed that I’m missing researching a bit about the areas I’m visiting beforehand – the reasons for this are twofold: 1) I don’t really know where I’m going until I get there and 2) I’ve such irregular internet access, such research is not possible to do on the fly.

In one small town I spied a collection of new MTBs on display down a driveway. It was actually a very small bike shop. I stopped ostensibly to look at what bikes might be popular in Germany. While the trend for e-bikes (bikes that electrically assisted, mostly uphill I think) has been around for a while, it is a little concerning and bewildering to see the popularity of full suspension e-MTBs. While I was there, I mentioned the little bit of play that had started to develop the day before. I was in luck – the guy had the correct one in stock, so I had it changed then & there.

Past Saarbrucken was my goal for the day, but only ten or fifteen kilometres short I was on the outskirts of Volklingen. The trail board mentioned an old steel works that had been preserved after the blast furnaces closed in 1986, I could see it not far away – I couldn’t resist taking a peak as I’m a sucker for industrial history, steel in particular. It turns out that it’s so well preserved that it was the first industrial site to be given UNESCO listing as a world cultural heritage site. Well, I just have to see this properly – but as it was closing for the day, it will be tomorrow – which puts everything back a couple of days. Oh well, it’s not like I’ve got a schedule.

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Being a steel town, I can’t say I was surprised that the centre was pretty dead and difficult to find somewhere suitable to eat. It was a little unnerving to ride under a rail-bridge that I’d seen torpedo ladles of molten hot metal roll over a few minutes before. The bridge held.

Montreal

Montreal had never really been much of a blip on my radar of places to visit one day.  But the little I read about the city after deciding to include it on this little drive led me to believe that I would quite enjoy it – at the least, there would be good poutine (which was on my quite long list of “things I must eat while in Canada & the States”).  A city of neighbourhoods, with excellent food it sounded good fun to explore for a couple of days.

We easily found our way on to the island (curiously, Montreal is an island in the St Lawrence River – I did not know that beforehand) and then to the apartment.  Apparently, our neighbourhood was good for food so we just wandered out the door to the end of the block to peruse the local haunts – Jane spied a good looking cupcake shop that was noted for a later date.  What followed at a rather too-hip-for-me cafe was the best meal I’ve had in ages – scallops on a barley risotto with vegetables done to perfection.

It turned out that one of the biggest & best markets in the city was only a few blocks away, so we headed down there after breakfast Saturday.  That probably wasn’t the best idea as I was immediately hungry again – I shouldn’t go into detail of the huge range of produce & meat that was on display.  I managed to cross a bagel off the list; Montreal bagels are supposed to be a little sweeter than most – either way, it was better than I used to bake.  I think we managed to sample half as many plums as we ended up buying – delicious & many varieties.

Jane was aware of the Bixi public bicycle sharing scheme in Montreal from a previous visit.  I was familiar with the concept from London & other European cities – a bit of research shows that the London system is a Bixi system (the largest, with Montreal second) – Bixi being a company set up by the city of Montreal.  Basically, there are over five thousand bicycles at four-hundred docking stations all around the city – for the measly sum of seven dollars for twenty-four hours, one can have have as many half-hour rides as desired (if you take a bike for more than thirty minutes, you get charged extra).  As it turns out, it’s an absolutely fantastic way to see the city.  The bikes are very solid (tough, but pretty heavy), easy to ride, comfortable, internally geared (the range of three is plenty) & with a handy basket on the front.  That is pretty much how we saw a lot of Montreal on the Saturday – interspersed by a fair bit of walking & eating too.

The local church

Not the kind of picture I usually snap while riding bikes, c.f. this

We ditched the bikes for a stroll, rather – a brisk steep walk, to the top of Parc du Mont-Royal – through plenty of leaves to kick around and brilliant colours.

It got a little cloudier

Looking over McGill University to downtown

We spent a fair bit of time riding near water – either along canals or over the river.  Montreal was the biggest industrial centre in the country until surpassed by Toronto in the second half of the twenty-century – strangely, I always find old silos & other industrial relics fascinating. As I write that, I realise that is a little weird – but think of the hundreds of people that used to work there making all sorts of things.



We went downtown for a little while, but I wasn’t overly impressed as it was sort of European, but not properly so.  The neighbourhoods were much more fun – so we walked back to where Jane stayed last time & found a great hot chocolate & more cakes.  We returned to the same cafe for dinner – I got to have my poutine & it lived up to all expectations; I eat more meals without meat that I ever used to.  I’m not sure this one really counted as it was probably so full of fat & such artery-clogging ingredients.

We worked out we’d biked & walked over forty kilometres the day before (just as well with all the food), so it was a little slower start on Sunday.  With still some of our twenty-hours left on the Bixi bikes, we headed off to the botanical gardens in the autumn crispness.  There were some cool lanterns in the Chinese Garden – although I suspect they are better at night.  I narrowly avoided being eaten by a tiger.

There were a few bugs too

Up much too early, the Montreal stay was over as I dropped Jane off at the airport for her to depart to her new life as an optometrist (that bit’s not new) in small town Nova Scotia. It’s not really far to the border & I was gone from Canada again by eight o’clock.

I had no idea that I’d enjoy Montreal so much – but I fear if stayed longer I’d eat well too much and put back on all the weight I lost over summer, plus some more. The whole time I was in Montreal however I did find something very disconcerting about it. It’s so obviously North American with American cars, big wide streets laid out on a grid, Canadian brands and so on – but all the signs & speech is in French, everyone’s better dressed & the food so good, it feels continental. It’s very difficult trying to reconcile all this – will people get upset if I just assume they speak English (most seem to be bilingual)? Annoyingly, the rest of Canada seems to make an effort at being bilingual with their signs, but you get to Quebec & there is next to English on the major signs – that seems a little rude, so I suppose that fits in well.

Anyway, Montreal – well worth a visit for a few days at least, if not more.