Milford Sound via Mavora Lakes

We've be on the road nearly two month...yes, time flies. Most of us know this. Kate and I have spent the better part of the last few weeks in the Otago region of New Zealand. Open spaces, lovely weather (finally!), and roadblocks full of sheep! We took a four day mini-trip in between races from Queenstown to Milford sound via the TSS Earnslow Ferry and Mavora Lakes Road.

The ferry was an eventful 45 minute trip across the S-shaped Lake Wakatipu. Eventful in that the boat is a super old, super cool steam ship. Otherwise, uneventful. No stormy weather or rogue waves or anything like that.

The boat dropped us off at Walter Peaks Station where the unsealed road meandered nicely through the mountains and farmlands. One of my life-long dreams to snap a photo of a scene like the one below! Glad to check that off my to-do list :) Heaps of sheep, open space and empty roads make for picturesque photos. They were being guided from behind by the farmer guy in a truck (aka ute, here) and his herding doggies. And off they went. Leaving doo-doo tracks that we would immediately be riding through. YES!

See, lots and lots of open space.

We camped a night (incredibly cold - but cloudless!) at Mavora lakes and befriended a french couple cycling on an odd contraption - it's a tandem...not so odd...but the front seat is a recliner style - I forget what they are called. The concept of this style tandem is good, the french couple explained, but the mechanics of it still needs some work, they said. The concept is that the person in the rear only sees the back of the front person on a regular tandem and potentially misses out on heaps of sights so having them in a reclined position up front gives both parties views to enjoy. Hopefully the small german company that designed it will edit it and make it more user friendly.

Eventually Kate and I made our way to the sealed roads to Te Anau - a gateway town to the Milford Sound. We camped the night at a freedom camping spot known as Queen's Reach before taking off the next day to Lake Gunn. Long day due to a late start, but the sunny sun sun was out for a record three days in a row!

We are so far south, and Autumn has arrived so the nights are for sure getting longer - this only means shorter days of riding as well.

The following day ranked up there as one of the most beautiful riding days of my life - the ride from Lake Gunn, through Homer Tunnel (a lightless, narrow, 1.2 km tunnel through near vertical Fiordland mountains), and out the other side to Milford Sound is indescribably stunning, even in a midst of chilly drizzle. Pics won't do it justice, so I suggest you just go there yourself!

See, I'm super happy to be in Milford Sound!

On the bikes again tomorrow for a 7 hour race in Queenstown - we're doing it relay style. It's 7 hours on a 7 mile lap course. Then off to the Otago Rail Trail or the Catlins before a half marathon back in Wanaka the last weekend of March! We agreed to volunteer at registration the day before, so we get our entries waived. I will also hopefully hunt down a winter job and work for accomodation as well while in town. Wish me luck!

Aloha!

If your not gonna win it...

Race report! Man oh man. What a 'race.' to sum up my experience in simple terms, my motto became "if you're not gonna win it, you might as well document it!" how does that explain my race for you?

Don't get me wrong, this was definitely a race. In fact it's a fairly big deal race. There were five different evetns going on with nearly 3500 participants overall. There was the event Kate and I did, the off-road triathlon. There was the mountain bike race, the off road marathon, the miner's trail 15km run, and an adventure run that took the winner of that race over 6 hours. The tri combined a 2 km swim, the same 47 km track of the mtn bike race, and the same 15 km trail for the Miner's track run. The swim was the roughest part and contributed to a rather long mountain bike e experience. My legs finally warmed up and were ready to ride fast at the 22km left sign. Nice. So that's what happens when you don't train for a 2km swim in a frigid glacial lake with a surfing wetsuit that you tried on and got in the water a day prior. It's safe to say that I was eSsentially asking for rough, long and cold swim with an even rougher transition and first half of the bike. Lesson learned. I will for real never sign up for a triathlon that I haven't properly trained for. This habit must be broken.

So it's an experience that could have gone real sour...BUT it didn't. I went through a few phases on the bike.

Phase #1 - There is NO WAY I will be able to finish this race. No way. And "I have how long to go before I'm done with this thing" and "this royally sucks."

Phase#2- being irritated and mildly pissed off at the amount of money put into the entry/wetsuit/mandatory bike and gearchecks, etc and not putting the time into the swim/running portions to perform decently.

Phase#3- realizing how big this event is - the unsealed road we were riding on is only opened once a year for this event. It goes through very

remote and rugged mountains. Before the race we had to go to a bike shop to have our bike and helmet checked and we also had to carry specific cold weather gear/first aid/repair kit/etc in a pack on both the bike and run.

In this phase i was also starting to genuinely observe the natural beauty surrounding me (my legs slowly started to loosen up to). We really were in a remote area and the seemingly annoying gear checks in town a couple days prior started making a little more sense.

So this is 'time to change your attitude, steph' phase. This is when I came up with my personal motatapu motto " if your not gonna win it, you might as well document it!" and all the sudden the race became fun and enjoyable. It was effortless to enjoy where I was and embrace the moment and stunning scenery surrounding me. I started to feel the "how lucky i am to be here" feeling versus "oh geez what have I gotten myself into...how much longer of this crap" feeling that overtook me earlier on.

Phase#4- photosnapping-aholic - for racing standards. I was happy to have my camera handy. The run was much more successful and I was able to run most of the uphills and had a few chatting breaks in between thanking all the volunteers.

So yeah, no pr's were broken, no podium placement... But someway, somehow still managed snag an XTerra slot in Maui for the world championship race in October! The two other people in my age group declined the slot so it rolled down to ME!!! Yeah!!! I took it...And I have a whole 7+ months to get ready for it!

Thank again to all the volunteers who sat for hours on end in the chilly wind!

The Rainbow Road

The Rainbow Road connects St Arnaud to Hanmer Springs via a private, unsealed (gravel) road, gradually meandering uphill through forests, mountains, streams, rivers, farms, gorges, and pure beauty. Island Saddle is the highest point along the road at just above 1350 meters. Nothing islandy about it up there! :) Just a whole lot of grass and mountains and clouds. And beauty. Below are some pics of us making our way to and through the road. The road goes through a few homesteads and is only open December-April each year. A $2 toll applies to bikes - pretty cheap considering 4 wheeled motorized transport = $25!

We did have several streams to ford across. One we even have to take apart our bike and trailers and carry them across due to high water levels. Kate and I stayed in St. Arnaud an extra night due to the water falling from the sky the day we had intended to leave. I think it was a smart choice because we very easily could have gotten stuck in between unpassable creeks.

We spent our first night in Connor's Creek Hut. What a gem of a place. Roughly 1 km off the main road, it's nestled just at the base of a huge mountain with a mountain creek (Connors Creek, I presume) running just to the side of it. Great water source. One of the lovely streams we encounter that would be so nice to have a refreshingly cool jump into on a hot summer day - a day that really has yet to come!

Everyone here keeps mentioning how Autumn is just around the corner...that's not music to my ears :)

Just behind the hut is a beautiful trail marked with orange triangles. These huts are dotted throughout the mountains along trails for hikers - and hunters and cyclists...whoever needs them. A small (usually) fee applies to maintain the huts and they are equipped with fireplaces and bunks. Nice to stay warm and dry from the rain we would have encountered.

I took a little walk behind the hut and encountered lots of beauty. I would love to come back here one day and do some tramping through these mountains. Such variety.

Yeah, we made it to the top of Island Saddle - just the name is bringing back memories of island life on O'ahu - oh Hawai'i how I miss you so. You will always hold a special place in my heart and one day I will return. But for the time being, I must appreciate and embrace life on another island.

We spent our second night on the road at Lake Tennyson. Pictures do this place no justice...so you'll just have to go there yourself. We met a few people also camping on this below freezing night (frozen dew drops on the tent the following morning!). I had pretty much every layer of warm weather clothing on me. I guess being optimistic about the cold - at least I am using all the gear I have packed rather than it sitting in the BOB taking up space and waiting patiently to be used.

Such a beautiful Road and definitely recommended for those with the proper treads, location and time.

Mountains - lots and lots of Mountains Coming our Way

The rain is clearing after a couple days of drizzles mixed with downpours. This equals hostel living at it's finest, where we made yummy desserts out of our camp food (peanut butter, honey, a bunch of seeds, coconut flakes, ground almond, cocoa powder - and not a drop of gluten free flour = non-gritty yum yum!). Less rain equals good times back on the road - gravel this time, and in the mountains! Lots of beautiful mountains. Good bye, ocean...for now.

Til next time! ~Aloha

Updatey

This is Titirangi Bay! Wow - so lucky!

Haha

Lots of riding since my last post! What stories shall I share?

A short recap:

From the Waikato River Trail, we were battered and exhausted. See...

Bruises
Delirium

huh?

Gratefully, these lovely people took saw us fatigued girls and helped us regain our strength to continue our crazy kiwi venture! Thank you Craig and Wendy and AvantiPlus Taupo!

After Taupo, we set off to the W2K trail - a 16 km treat of a trail that more or less connects Taupo to Kinloch. We found a great spot to get some shut eye for the night. Behind Kate is a downed tree whose enormous chopped trunk provided a great kitchen set-up. Thank you downed tree!

Eventually we made our way to Napier via State Highway 5 - yuck. Traffic on a holiday weekend over a busy and hilly road. But after realizing our trail riding was taking a bit longer than intended, we'd have to sacrifice a few trails to get to Wanaka in time for our race - www.iconicadventures.co.nz

Napier is known for it's art-deco architecture and vibe. It was essentially flattened by a giant earth shaking, better known as an earthquake, in the 30's. The new city was built during the hey-day of art-deconess and the city essentially decided to preserve it instead of dismantle and deconstruct it to smithereens and replace it with concrete blocks...now they have great art deco festivals.

We also had our first official pool swim in prep for swimbikerun fun in Wanaka...the pool was salt water from the ocean!

Look - I'm on the ferry from Wellington to Picton...the South Island- oooooohhhh...aaaaaahhh(to give ourselves some rest and some leeway to get to Wanaka, Kate and I realized it'd be best to hop on a bus from Napier to Wellington).

Our third official run in prep for swimbikerun fun in Wanaka. This is on the Queen Charlotte Track (what a beauty)

Yeah!! Ludo met up with us! We met Ludo in Rotorua...he's combining bike touring and woofing together for his own fun times here. Here is Kate and Ludo (I'm photo-taking) about to start the first 20km of the Queen Charlotte Track. The last7.5 km of the portion we did was not fun...a lot of bike/trailer pushing up steep hills. yeah, not fun. So we hopped on the road before it turned to gravel road to Titirangi Bay...WOW! Thanks Ludo for inviting us along. Such a fun and beautiful place...

This is Kate taking a picture of the Sound and Titirangi Bay. We are so lucky - even though we did have to climb up and over the 800m Mount Stokes to get here...yeah that means 800m of climbing from sea level first thing in the morning...lucky us :)

Memory card and this computer decided not to get along for the rest of the night...so the final update will be without pics for the time being...and therefore more speedy.

Kate, Ludo and I finished out ventures riding the Queen Charlotte Track/Sound/Road route and made our way to Pelorus Bridge...we met up with Margaret and Andrew (thanks for the lawn space and slackriding day!) again - whom we first met on our way to the bay (and special thanks to Ludo and Andrew for picking fresh mussels at Titirangi Bay and cooking them for us - yummy!).

We made it to Nelson at five pm (reminds me of a mini Honolulu - ocean, mountains, towncity beauty all in your backyard...except perhaps much colder winters). The following morning (go us!) Kate and I raced the Coppermine Epic www.coppermine.co.nz - check out the results! What a great track. I LOVE Nelson! Thanks Ludo for being our cheer person and personal photographer...it was also fun seeing people's reactions after they found out we rode to Nelson and raced the next day. One guy even recognized Kate's double braids from a few days prior while we were all on the road in full bike/trailer setup.

Our ventures with Ludo came to an end...sniffles, and Kate and I are in downtown Nelson for the night staying at the Shortbread Cottage thanks to warmshowers host Jimmy! What a treat...this is such a cozy and wonderful place if you ever need a place to stay in Nelson.

We will be off again soon to road unknown (well, don't get me wrong...we know where we are going in the next few days but it's top-secret in blogland til after it's actually been done!).

Much aloha y'all...I hope to write more story-esque posts versus update-esque posts in the future. I'm peacin' out to the good night for now. til next time :)

WRT

The WRT

What does WRT stand for? W=Waikato R=River and T=Trail. So, WRT=Waikato River Trail...Yay we can do math!!

This trail was depicted in brochures as one meandering along the riverside for roughly 100 km. Guidebooks also rated it as easy to intermediate-a trail 'the entire family can enjoy' sort of deal.

Let's just say that these guidebooks and brochures were misguided. Very very misguided.

We spent four riding days on the trail. From essentially Arapuni Dam to Atiamuri Dam. First day on the trail was one of the few road sections to Jone's Landing - a lovely campsite on the Arapuni Lake with towering cliffs behind us. We escaped the joys (sarcasm) of Mamaku Forest this day and after a brief stop in the stuck in the 70s architecture of Putaruru, we were treated with an incredible moon setting on the calm lake on a starlit night. The starlit night would gradually turn into a cloud filled sky creating the droplets of water falling from the air above- more commonly known as rain. Lovely.

We would spend much of the following day in the tent waiting out the rain before packing up to the trail head where we'd be greeted with 22 plus switchbacks down the valley to the river's edge.

We detoured to Mike's house for a couple days before the switchbacks and were happy to not have camped on the trail that night due to the pig hunting festivities explained in the previous post.

The switchbacks weren't entirely horrible- especially since we did have gravity with us instead of against us. Good practice for sharp turns as well.

Our legs were already scattered with bruises from Mamaku...but certainly the majority of them were yet to come. The trail from the switchbacks on were pretty much bundles of steep, gravely mess with a few good views here and there.

The country has a cycle way initiative going on now to try and create trails from the top to the bottom of the country. The WRT is one of the trails funded by this initiative...a $3 million investment, in fact. But word on the cycling street is that the makers of the trail weren't so much actually RIDING the trail but walking it after sections were completed. Part of the trail is actually a set of stairs 5 stories tall. We were informed of and well aware of this section, at least...and the swichback...but everything else in between was the misguided part.

Apparently well respected trailmakers for riding tried to give advise but the input wasn't going through so they had to let it go.

Long story short, Kate and my through-biking tour of the WRT left us battered and exhausted.

The last section from Whakamaru to Atiamuri was the most pleasant 25 Km section and most ridable, though there were heavily rooted sections and cattle guard gate things much too skinny for our trailers to fit through. At one point, once every couple of minutes we'd have to dismount the bikes, set one aside and haul the trailer and bike over the gate... Then do the same for the other one! Just another way to add a few more bruises to the legs.

So the WRT was kind of like a slap in the face... We were faced with incredibly steep (and long) inclines/declines that would have been challenging for MOST people WITHOUT hauling a loaded trailer. Better yet, most of these inclines/declines were littered with loose large gravel. The five story stair case, minimal water stops (fortunately we are geared with an H2O pump), the undersized bike gates, tight corners, etc all added to the fatigue and exhaustion we'd face. I can handle these things... But it's much more bearable when it's expected.

Sooooo, Switchbacks are actually our friends...well via mtn bike anyway - especially deceiving switchbacks that are actually switchbacks but you can't really tell they are switchback switchbacks. Those are the best. We were fortunate enough to take the W2K trail from Taupo to Kinloch - the trail skirts along a peninsula against the largest lake in the country, Lake Taupo and is regarded as a work of trail art by many. It was truly a treat to ride up an decent amount of elevation and thoroughly enjoy it as it meandered and curved (widely) through the bush. We arrived in Kinloch and also had our first swim and run on the trip (in preparation for the Xterra race near Wanaka next month).

Big aloha and many many Thank You's to Craig, Wendy, and Jak at the AvantiPlus store in Taupo. We were two exhausted and battered and stinky cyclist who felt refreshed and rejuvinated thanks to your kindness. My new cassette, chain and chain rings are running beautifully as well and we are slowly learning the wonders of GPS :). Take care and we'll be sure to visit on our return trip to the North Island.

And most importantly, thank you for the clarification that the Waikato River Trail actually is hard and poorly graded. It justifies our bruises a little bit more than the meandering along a river bank trail we thought we were meant to experience :)

Aloha!

A story of bacon...

It's been a while, blogland, huh? Kate arrived into town and it has been an adventure ever since! We hit the road just about two weeks ago and have already had a genuine and adventurous kiwi experience that I never would have thought up in a million years.

First, I will tell you the story of bacon...

Ok, so this is roughly four days into the trip - after a tricky experience in the Mamaku Forest where we had to backtrack out of the Forest to retrieve the much needed for life liquid, also known as water. (Google Earth would later show us that we had taken the wrong fork kilometers before). oops. We've invested in the Garmin Edge 800 (thank you Craig, Wendy, and Jak at Avanti Plus in Taupo - and thanks for the jersey, too - I LOVE it!) so future mis-haps such as these should be minimal and hopefully make for a more enjoyable and less bruise filled trip - we'll see about the less bruises. hmmm, not so sure about that.

Ok, focus, Steph, focus.

Alright, so we made it out of Mamaku! The backtracking and steep gravel roads and thirst and exhaustion had me craving bacon. Bacon, of all things. I don't like bacon. Strange - perhaps my body was craving the salty protein?

Well, we had to detour from our original plans to a surfing town on the west coast called Raglan because of our extra day or two in Mamaku. This led us to the Waikato River Trail (WRT)- a 100+ km mtn bike trail along the...what do you think?? Yeah, along the Waikato River. A stop at the i-site (information site) in Putaruru (pronounced Poot-AIR-oo) to pic up some maps of the trail led us to believe we'd be meandering along the rivers edge along boardwalks (flat), super fancy suspension bridges (flat) and gravel paths (flat). The grades on the brochure maps were labled easy and intermediate. We thought this would be the PERFECT trail to ease into our mtn bike touring, New Zealand style.

Ok, I'm getting off track...back to bacon. So we end up on the WRT and make it to the switchback descent (roughly 24 switchbacks down the valleys edge to the river) around 6 pm. The sun sets at 9 pm in the summer here so we figured we'd go down a bit (we had gravity with us, right?) and pitch the tent along the river somewhere - a picnic table was labled on the map not too far away which seemed like the likely spot. As we start up the path just after the trailhead - which follows a path between two cattle farms, Matt pulls up on an ATV and asks us if we know what's ahead. We smalltalk for a bit and he lets us know that we are welcome to stay at the house just down the way if we decide we don't want to start such a venture so late. We say our goodbyes and check out the descent. It's beautiful - the river inside the valley with a mixture of green native bush and farmland lining the steep valley walls.

We decide to take on the venture in the morning and make our way back to Matt's house. Turns out it's not Matt's house though. He's visiting Mike, the owner of the house and farm. (Don't worry, we are two well-traveled ladies and know how to use our guts to determine if a situation is safe are not - the coast is clear :) We couldn't have been in better hand for the next two adventure-filled NZ style days.

Mike and Matt ask if we want to hop in the truck and take a tour of the property. We agree. Down super steeeeeeeep farm roads with the setting sun in the distance, we make our way to the maize field along the rivers edge. Turns out, the dogs in cages in the back of Matt's truck are hunting dogs and he's going for a little pig hunt. We are invited to follow - how can we decline?! Hehe...

What follows is the most random night of my life. To sum it up: through the maize field (in our cycling shoes!), in knee deep puddles, along thorn filled raspberry bushes, with gps geared dogs (3 are Matt's hunting dogs, and also Snow, Mike's non-hunting dog), Matt's gps -to track the dogs, squealing baby pigs, nighttime showing it's face, a cellphone as a torch (flashlight), 3 other hunting parties - hunting (one of which had a monster spotlight), a fishing boat with a light, lots of yelling in the forest to other hunting parties, glow-worms lining the trail (WOW - so neat), starlit night, hiking in the night as Matt left to find the pig (he told us to keep following the trail and he'd meet back up with us...which he did:)...

and finally,

a single shot...and dead pig (though not by Matt).

Whew, what a night - and we still had a solid 30+minute hike back to the truck.

Can you imagine how utterly terrified we would have been if we had camped along the river's edge that night?! We would have been smack in the middle of a pig-hunting frenzy. Scared crap-less that's for sure...

Eventually the truck climbs the steep roads back to Mike's house nearing midnight.

"What would you like for dinner?" The guys ask.

"Bacon?"

Yeah, literally the first word out of Mike's mouth was bacon...the one thing I had been craving - rather vocally - at the beginning of our crazy mtn-biking-nz-style adventure.

So we ate wild caught bacon and talked till three in the morning.

Thank you so much Mike and Matt, and Snow (the dog) for such an experience... And big thanks for the helicopter ride, and giving us a glimpse to a day in the life at a dairy farm (we got cow doo-dooed on and learned the process of modern day milking). Intriguing.

And this is just the beginning...