Wellington 5: Salvation, Deliverance and Makara again

Day Five!  Twas decided to play in Makara again, and include a lap up and down Salvation and Deliverance.  The climb up Salvation was sweet, and waaay shorter than I'd remembered it.  Seemed to take no time at all.  At the top I rolled off up the road for a bit to look for another apparently 'rocky' entrance to Deliverance that I'd read about online, but no.  Rolled back down to see the rest of the crew arrive.  Off into the descent.  Nelson out front, then, i think, Pete then me, and I thought Mark was right on my tail, but it turned out it was Alistair, rattling down the rocks and roots behind me.  Part way down the rockiest section I found myself blind from runny eyes, and had to pull up.  I let Alistair go and then followed.  A few techknuckle features later and there's a bit hold up where Nelson had dropped off the big drop and his front wheel had burped him off the track.  Bike cluttered down into the woods and him left hanging on.  We all gradually regrouped, then Warren wandered down with a flat too.  After that was fixed, off again.  More interspersed techknuckle features then I round a corner and there's Pete with a garked knee (again!) and a very close call to speak of, what with the exposed warratah sticking out of the side of the track that could have pierced his ribs if he'd landed worserer.  Rolling again and into that wee chutey bit, I cleaned all the rocky entry, but got to the root drop into chute and baulked.  Quickly ran down and remounted and rolled through to a regroup before the final up and down and in and out of the creek to final exit climb.  Phew.   DeMaperanced - 4.82 km loop, with only 155m of altitude - surprising that is..

The vehicle drivers took the vehicles to Makara and we all rode through to the Cafe at the Cricket Grounds for lunch.  Then a brief sojourn to Mud Cycles for a good gawk and off back along the roads to the park.  Up Koru, the proper way this time, then Sally Alley and brief regroup to enter new climb Three Bros leading to the Snake Charm up to the top.  Pete and Alistair headed down to do Peak Flow (cos they'd missed it the day before), and then they were chasing back up, while the rest of the crew did North Face, and Nelson, Mark and myself did Trickle Falls, which was super uber techknuckle.  The 'filter' at the top a damned good indication of a few of the features to follow.  I walked a few, but rode a heap.  Nelson rode everything, but even Mark actually walked one or two (one or two less than me tho).  We ended up out on some street, Allington Rd, up which we rode and into Allington Rd Connector track which crossed where JFK becomes Smokin'.  We heard the other's voices here and they arrived and we all rode down Smokin' to where it crossed Snake Charmer where some headed down and out (Steve, Robin, Tony???) and the rest of us clambered on back up to the top again.  From here we thought we'd check out T3 which was cool, lots of interesting features, like a lizard covered in bike tires, and a chain-swing boardwalk thing.  At an intersection there was the option of Vertigo down, or Varley's.  Nelson, Mark, Alistair and me chose Vertigo, while the rest took Varley's.  Vertigo was awesomesauce.  Not as rugged as Trickle, but lots of really fun steeeeeeep sections.  Cleaned it all and felt damned good about it.  It ends on the same final stretch as Trickle, so we rolled up to Allington Rd again and up the connector and then down Smokin', Ridgeline Extension, SWIGG, Starfish, blazing out to the end, then rolling down and out to the Cafe to join the rest of the fellas and fellesse then to head back to base.  All good...Mappedkara - 20kms and nearly 700m alt.