Monday, April 24, 2017

Monday: Morning Blue Jet Spur then Family Rail Trail to Ross

Jet Spur
Jet and me went for a quick morning solo blat up the Blue Spur.  Up the gravel road past Seesaw and for the first time taking in Slow Girls, which was a fun wee trail, with a few whoops and doops through, then on up the, at times, grindy gravel road past first The Cutting (and Logarithm), then Bad Boys and up to the top of Stags Drop.  Headed out and checked out top of Rehab Ridge, but not so game on this black track on the fatty, so rolled back and headed into Stags Drop, finding it heaps shorter than the other day for some reason, then into Bad Boys, again, shorter than remembered, and then The Cutting, which had more climb in it that I'd recalled from just a couple of days, but was longer and fun.  Then it was the gravel climb up to beginning of Slow Girls again, past Tunnels and Seesaw, and, for the first time, out on Doolittle - which was cool, and way longer than I'd expected, and actually really fun.  Finally, down the gravel back to the car.

7 and a half kms, with just over 200 m climbed.  Sweet blast.

To Ross!
Then, family headed south in the car on the main highway, past Mahinapua, and at the corner at Ruatapu, turned off the main road onto the Wilderness Trail section, and parked near the end of the side road.  Headed onto the rail trail here, a clear 13 or so kms to Ross, along an old railway line, very very straight, and barely any gradient.  A few cool streams, the really cool Totara River bridge, and some cool swamp lands, with very stunted kahikatea forest.  Long and straight and flat... 13kms each way. Totally wore out the boys.  Last day of the holiday and even I was relieved not to have to ride my bike for a day or two...  26.9 kms, and surprisingly 115 m of alt (most of which is probably the climb up into Ross).

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