Wellington 3: Polhill Barking Parts

Day three of the annual trip.  Headed across town to the Aro Valley again, and met up with Nelson's friend Ken and my work buddy David.  Headed up Holloway Rd, funky house valley, and up into George Denton Park, hitting up Clinical, meandery wee climb zigging and zagging up through nice regenerating native bush, as do most of our fair capital's trails, eventually topping out in a wee park.  Big regroup here for everyone to get their breath back from the final steep of the climb, then through the fence to the edge of Karori Sanctuary, and into Highbury Fling - another climber through similar regen bush.  A couple of ridges it pops out into the viewdom, but mostly in the bush.  Eventually, it finished (observing Transient peeling off to the left) at a suburban street, and we hit up Sawmill Track climbing up to the Sanctuary fence again.  Followed this a bit and then across the road and into Windmill trail which meandered around below the windturbine (swoop swoop swoop as backing sound).  The wind was fierce and blustery and in places the scudding clouds were losing their moisture into trees which were over-dripping the track.  This track turned into Car Parts Extension, then eventually into Barking Emu which was quite a bit of up and down, with one ridge which nearly blew us off our bikes, and eventually ended up at the top of the Tip Track (an infamous Welly climbing track).  Regrouped here and didn't stick around on account of there being very little respite from the wind.  Headed back along Barking Emu and 'Parts Extension, seeming much longer than memory had allowed, and more climbing than I would have thought possible considering how much climbing there was going out.  Popped out at the Windmill and had a good look at it, then dropped into Car Parts, muchly different from my previous memory of it last time Nelson and me rode it, fanging down through drops and twists and turns, I had Ken on my tail and he was fast and hard on me, pushing me.  Managed to survive this and popped out across the road to the fence again.  Regroup then back around to Sawmill and down, and dropped into top of Transient.  Got rather messed up on some roots near the top, nearly losing my shit, juuuust managing to pull it back in and riding it out, then around the corner crossing Highbury and bombing on down the rest of it.  Great flowy trail down here, fast.  Chasing Alistair and once coming upon him extracting himself from a tree, he got moving again ahead and slowly losing me around a corner or so ahead, then not long later I come round a corner and there he is wrapped around a tree again.  I rode past and continued on down.  We did a big regroup where the trail meets a 4wd section, then coasted down and into Serendipity, a socalled Black Trail...  Fun.  Mildly more technical (but not that much) than Transient, swoopy and droppy in places, finishing off with a big steep cobbled bit on the hillside above the bottom of the Polhill Reserve where we all regrouped and headed back to base.  Rather late lunch and then nobody seemed to be in for a 2nd ride of the day cos it was quite late by this time.

Mapola