Monday School Hols Fog Pearcing Views

At the bach for some of the school holidays, with the fatbike, so headed out this morning, low cloud cover filling the valley.  Headed up the road, making (aptly named) Misty Hills gate in just over 15 minutes, and the top of the road 40 minutes later...  Headed through the gate, and through the fog up the gravel track towards the top of Mt Pearce.  Rather steeper in bits than I remembered, for it has been a long while, but I grovelled onwards up and after a couple of gates made it to the top, 720-something metres climbed.  View up here was spectacular, overlooking the cloud below, and the tops of all the peninsula peaks.  Brief rest and then off I headed down, heaps of speed from gate to gate, then through the last one back onto the road.

Around here along the Summit Rd, bits and pieces of fog wafting across, no view below, fog as far as the eye could see, just the tops poking out.  Got to my turn off, and headed down to the gate, over this and onwards up the ridge towards the paper road and View Hill.  Bit of riding, bit of walking and eventually over the last fence, around a knoll and then around the side of the hill on what was once a track, til I veered right and headed up and over onto the farmtrack that zigged and zagged me to the top of View Hill.  Long climb here to the very top, 769m, nice rest, beautiful sunny day up here, while all around me was fog below.

Snack, then down again.  Speeeeeeeed.  Top gate, then bombed down View Hill Road into the fog at around 500m, lowering visibility to stuff all, massive speed down here even tho I could hardly see anything, having to lower my glasses and look through the gap between them and my visor.  Passed a dog tied to a fence, and then lower down, below the concreted section, met the first few sheep and lambs coming up the road.  I hauled up and pulled over to the fenceline and waited as they passed, and eventually the farmer with his two grand kids turned up moving the sheep along.  Quick chat with them, and bombed on down again, gathering even more speed down the final bits of gravel, through Chorlton rounding onto the seal and fanging down the road into the bay.

Peeled off onto Lukes Track and over down to the tennis courts, then up the road and up the drive...

983m climbed, 24.8kms...

Sunday Pearcing the clouds, paper roading

Mark and Marie came to visit at the bach. So, on Sunday, we headed out on our bikes. Mark Heckling, Marie 140ing and me the Soul brother. We headed up Little Akaloa Rd. It starts out nice and gentle, but about 10 minutes up it starts to bite. From here, its roughly 30 minutes of granny. I was always sure it was 1 hour to the top, with 45 of granny from Misty Hills, but today proved that a mis-memory. We ground away, me peering into the undergrowth on both sides above and below the road dreaming of Living Springs styled, but rougher, trails therein. Passed by one or two cars coming down, but none heading up. At one stage a farmer on a quad came down the road, giving us that smile with a trace of "what are you, crazy?" look in his eyes.

Near the summit we got into the clouds, enshrouding us for a good portion of the ride. Top of the road, we headed up the access track up Mt Pearce to the radio tower. Nice climb, only one or two really steep bits. At the summit road it was quite chilly, with the cloud and easterly conspiring against warmth, but as we climbed, it got brighter and warmer, and by the top we were blessed with patches of sunshine and it was very lovely and warm. Mark was partially zapped by the gate at the top which was either electrified, or it was picking up on ambient radiation from the microwave/radio tower??? So, munched on muesli bars on the downhill side of the gate, then hit the trail down. Periods of speed, chatting and rolling. Through the couple of gates and down. At the DOC Mt Pearce Reserve sign we were greeted with an amazing clear view of Akaroa Harbour bathed in sunshine. Spectacular. Nice flight down from here, back into the cooler cloud, getting thicker as we got back down to the Summit Rd.

From here we felt our way around the Summit Rd towards Okains. At the cross over between Little Ak and Okains catchments we hit the ridgeline. Officially there's a paper road across here, where exactly you'd need a gps for. We felt our way across the paddock, riding farmtrack and sheeptrails up rocky interesting sections to a fence, over this and up a bit where we were greeted by a half and half landscape

Sunshine bathing Okains valley, and a wall of fog/cloud over Little Ak. Fun singletrack-ish trails around here towards the View Hill Rd which we flew down to being sprayed by the wet grass undertread.

Through the gate and the down the track to where i rode to last week and into sunshine. Mad. Views out to Long Lookout and a beautiful day out there. We bombed down here, much damper, and in a couple of places, greasy, compared to the dryness of Monday prior.

Blatted on down, and then I pulled up a little way above the twin concrete bit, wicked view down into Raupo where the family was unseen on the beach. Then, there's a guy on a bike grunting his way up to us. Had a chat and continued on our mutually exclusive ways. From here, we picked the off-piste play lines, to the right of the road mostly, firstly on grass and rocks, and some clay, then onto clay and roots under the big macracarpas, quite fun. Then the final gravel burst down, Mark taking in some off-road off-piste bits before our speedy gravity powered blast down the sealed road back into the bay.

All up, roughly 3 and a half hours, of good honest grunt. 737m to start with, then a few extras before the 650m odd descent off the flanks of View Hill. Nicely nicely.

New Years Eve Eve, Banks Pen: Mt Pearce, View Hill.

Holidayed at Little Akaloa from Boxing Day til yesterday. Took my bits and pieces over and replaced entire drivetrain, cassette, chain, derailleurs, cables, shifters, middle ring (new 36t), and new bashguard and tensioner...

30th December, 2009, me Sis and partner were heading to Akaroa in our car, so i grabbed a lift to the top of the hill with them (saving me a 45 minute granny-grovel). from summit rd (540m), i headed up track to top of Mt Pearce (737m). a few gates, a few steeps, with great views, and a nice cool southerly blowing across the tops. turned around and bombed it back down to summit road.

then tootled around Summit Rd towards Okains, peeling off below Duvauchelle Peak, hitting the ridge (571) to View Hill. across the ridge, walking bits and pieces upto the sidle round to the paper road, and on up the zigs to the very top (762m). helluva gale up there, but views extraordinaire. looked at watch: 12.00. and headed down. down, off piste a bit, then onto the paper road officialis, bombed, shook, shuddered, hoofed, huffed, pushed by wind up bits normally pedalled, bombed (again), hooned, full noise down the last gravel, onto the seal at Chorlton, then back round into the wind for the descent into the bay, pedalling to keep the speed up into the wind, then awesome speed down to church and on down past beach, up road, up drive to house, 12.15... choice, nearly 800m altitude, 8kms (4kms and more than 500m alt. of which was off road), 15mins...