Having heard about my attempt to string a big gravel loop together last year and failing to get through to Patoka, Shaun came up with a route on paper roads (legally roads, just not formed as roads – they exist only on maps as roads) to get from the Napier-Taupo highway through to Patoka. The first day of this long-awaited weekend adventure was pretty much the same as the route Steve & I took at the start of last year. The only difference being that instead of the long, beautiful climb up Waipunga, along the ridge before plunging down from Darkys Spur (all on formed public roads – tarseal & gravel), this year’s route would keep us lower down and use more paper roads.

Similar to last year’s ride, we would camp the Saturday night beside the Mohaka River. As I was the only one set up for bikepacking, we arranged the luxury of having all our camping gear and food driven into the campsite by another workmate, Simon, who would go hunting nearby after dropping our kit off. On a fine, warm Saturday morning Shaun, Mark & I assembled at Simon’s house and loaded his car with our overnight stuff.

With bikes lightly loaded, for an overnight trip, we set off just before ten. Over Hill Road to the Taupo road we were shortly ever so slightly climbing up Ellis Wallace Rd – enjoying the warmth and the lack of traffic. As the railway has been closed for a few years, we made a brief foray from the road and rode over the Esk River on the railway bridge, because we could. Due to re-open this year, if just this one bridge is anything to go by – there is a lot of work to return it to a suitable state of repair.

It was bumpy. Only a few sleepers were missing.

With more gradual climbing on the road, we reached a level crossing and turned right. Big wheels bumping over the sleepers, we followed the rails to the first paper road. And then went past it to check out the first of a series of tunnels on this section of rail.

There may have been a bit of drop beside the entrance to the tunnel.

We walked the length of the curved tunnel, not stumbling over any dead goats in the complete darkness.

Retracing our paths ever so slightly, we turned from the railway up a steep grassy hill as the paper road began. For about half of the ten kilometres of this connection, we climbed gently through open farmland on grass tracks. It was very pleasant riding out in the sun, not too hot; we didn’t encounter any stock or a peeved farmer, so that was good. The second half of was through pine forest on a more formed surface. Still gradually climbing, it was nice to be in the shade of the canopy as the day warmed.

Rejoining the road, and last year’s route, it was great to have been somewhere new. A quick ride down to the highway covered another ten kilometres. Turning left we were shortly at the Tutira Store – where the ownership must have changed (it was for sale last year) as the guy behind the counter seemed to know about actual customer service. We had a fair go at emptying the pie-warmer, eating a large lunch in the shade of a silver birch tree. Shaun somehow managed to hole his hydration bladder, but nothing a bit of tape couldn’t fix.

Shortly after two o’clock we set off on the prolonged climb towards Bell Rock. By now, it was definitely warmer than the forecast low-twenties. Mark kept us honest as we climbed and climbed. Without the big mob of sheep to wait for, I didn’t really take many photos – see last year’s post if you’re curious. Gaining about six hundred meteres of altitude, it’s a steady climb and never gets too steep. We started to feel the sun as there was little shade.

Nearing the top, we stopped at this gateway. Since seeing this picture, I’m disturbed by how skinny my calves look. I’m sure there is some muscle there somewhere.

We finally got to the top of the climb and looked out north in front of us towards Waikaremoana. It was late enough in the day that the side trip to Bell Rock was not feasible. Instead we saw a trig just above the road so clambered up there.

Looking out towards the Pacific.

Well, I clambered – Mark and Shaun took their bikes up too.

After being loudly encouraged to get back on the road by a local, we did just that and sped down the gravel road from the saddle. With recent logging still readily apparent, the hills in the distance were more captivating. Back on slightly flatter road, we turned left onto Waitara Rd and the last fifteen kilometres to camp.

First up was a very steep, long, gravel downhill which we sped down – Shaun nudging eighty kilometres an hour! I was glad I still had some energy in reserve as I remembered this stretch of road being a series of steep uphills followed by steep downhills. Exhausting. I had not misremembered this – it was tiring as the legs had to keep on working and the day did not get cooler just yet. Eventually we hit the sealed road again and had a nice little descent to the river to arrive at Glenfalls Campground – conveniently just before our support crew turned up with tents, food & beer.

Pleased to have finished a great day’s ride. Especially as this was the longest ride on a MTB for both Shaun (left) and Mark (right) – well done guys.

A few of our little group went off hunting; I was more intent on making camp, eating copious amounts of carbonara, wandering down to the river, and getting an early night after a great day.

After the success of the last bikepacking trip through Waikaremoana to Rotorua, Steve was easily persuaded to join me on a smaller trip closer to home. I’d been studying the topo map of the hills behind work, of which I’d ridden into a little way, and thought I could string a good overnighter together – camping at a DOC campsite on the Mohaka River. A fine sunny weekend was forecast, the only possible problem there being the thirty-plus temperatures.

Saturday morning was spent doing chores and shopping for food. So, it wasn’t until after one o’clock we set off north from Napier. The ride around the coast was as stunning as ever – even though it’s the way I ride to work often, it felt quite different on the weekend with a loaded bike heading off on an adventure.

All smiles at the prospect of exploring somewhere new – Steve has now perfected the riding selfie, no thumbs in this one.

Up Waipunga Road, we were headed for gravel roads that I had at least pedalled over previously. The heat wasn’t unbearable with a bit of motion-induced breeze, but definitely it was hot. Reaching the end of Waipunga Road, we were atop Darkys Spur and ready to zoom down to Waikoau. I insisted we stop a couple of times on the way down to take in the view of the hills and the gravel road winding its way down to the valley floor. Looking at that inviting topo map, I think there are more, smaller, adventures to be had exploring around here.

Passing through the unexpected and decidedly odd ex-Railways village of Waikoau, we were back on sealed road heading down the valley to the Wairoa road. There we knew was the Tutira Store – our last chance to refuel. It was stupidly hot in the store – which went someway to explaining why the woman behind the counter was so grumpy when we asked to fill water bottles, after buying delicious ice creams. I was not surprised to see a For Sale sign up – looking after customers was not a talent on display. We filled our water bottles at the charming little school over the road and headed north-east & inland.

I hadn’t realised there were so many walking tracks and other things to see up this seemingly innocuous country road. Forced to stop at Opouahi Scenic Reserve to wait for a mob of lambs to be herded down the road, we found a nice little lake surrounded by bush and a kiwi (the bird, not the fruit) creche – for which our company seems to be the naming sponsor, who knew?

While we waited we could look back over the valley we’d just ridden down to Darkys Spur – you can just see the cutting for the road heading down and right from the centre of the ridge.

To my surprise, I got closer to the lake than Steve – he didn’t have a swim at all during our ride. (c.f. the three of the last trip)

Just a NZ backcountry traffic jam.

The steady climbing on the well-surfaced gravel road continued as we started to ride through more bush than farmland. Interesting rocky outcrops started to appear on the small bluffs. We avoided being accidentally shot by a farmer out hunting rabbits as dusk settled in.

I didn’t know these signs actually existed – I have a small plastic version that someone (Adele) sent me while I was overseas, I suspect to make me homesick.

There were yet more trailheads to pass – I must come back one day when I’ve run out of places to ride and check out some of the hiking trails. Reaching our highest point for the day, about 800 m above seal level, the views opened up to the north.  In the early evening light I’d really been enjoying the climb and this just topped it off.  We could see a long way north. I checked my GPS’s list of “cities” nearby – we were only forty kilometres from Tuai, a village we rode through on the Waikaremoana trip!  Sometimes I’m surprised by the distance one can cover on a bike with minimal effort – or maybe, it’s just NZ really is quite small.

I’d enjoyed seeing many different uses of the land on this ride so close to the city. Now we were definitely heading into plantation forest.

We reached our northern-most point on the route and turned onto Waitara Road – obviously a haul road for logging trucks, it was the widest gravel road I’ve seen in a long time. We were hauling too down there as we lost a lot of altitude. Unfortunately, after so many hours in the heat there were a few not-insubstantial climbs to surmount before we finally got to the turnoff to the campsite. But the climbing was not over quite yet – eventually, we rolled down the final descent just before eight o’clock.

For an isolated campsite inaccessible to motorhomes, campervans and small cars – it was pretty busy. There was enough daylight left to make camp, head down to the Mohaka to cool and wash off the day’s dust and sunscreen, clean up some severe food leakage in my cooking set and make a well-earned dinner. A warm night with a big moon, it was plenty bright. Steve had no qualms in settling for the bivy bag, while I took my little tent. All slept well as it turned out we’d done more climbing in significantly less distance than the Waikaremoana trip – I wasn’t expecting that.

I think I even made the outrageous claim that I enjoyed that day’s riding more than the Waikaremoana trip – & that was fantastic. Perhaps it was just the living-in-the-moment thing that made it seem so good. But after a couple of days, it still seems that good – maybe because it was a route made up just to go & see what was out there and not one I’d got out of a book. Anyway, I’ll stop trying to rationalise it – it was an excellent afternoon of bikepacking finding new places so close to home.

However, due to leaving it too late in being persuaded in trying to get permission (from a forest owner and a farmer) to access an alternative, more interesting and lower-traffic route home, Sunday was only good without being exceptional. Still, I can’t complain about being out on a bike in the sun – I’ll just have to do the trip again (which I’d be more than happy to do) and organise the land access earlier to make the return to Napier more enjoyable.

Sunday morning continued on gravel with a fair climb up from the river to get us going. Soon we were back on the sealed road and came across the more accessible Glenfalls Campsite – it was very popular, I remember now that it is still school holidays. Our morning got a little more social as first we chatted with a Canadian cycle-tourist (who’d braved the length of the Napier-Taupo, which I’m not keen on doing) and then dropped in to visit someone from work – who just happened to live at the turn-off to the forest I want to ride through next time.

Glenfalls looks a popular place to camp.

From there, it was on the highway for twenty-five kilometres – consisting of one big climb and then a long descent towards the coast. The Sunday morning traffic wasn’t too bad and I pootled up the hill OK. We turned off to take backroads back to the city – we found out we missed a four-car pile-up near this intersection by half an hour, it closed the road. Thankfully the diverted traffic never caught up to us on these smaller roads as we rolled into Napier happy campers (quite literally).

It didn’t take long before my eyes turned back to the local topo maps to start planning more loops in the hills – so much to explore when you live somewhere new!