This puppy climbs nicely, tho steadily. Nelson suggested it was steady like Salvation, but without the trees, and obviously a lot fewer corners. Heaps of sheep and lambs were clearing out of our way near the top, stupid things, whaddayadoin' hanging out IN the wind!? Where the original Britten track joined ours, just shy of the cattlestop we about-faced our directionality and proceeded on up that, 'round over the top and onwards along to its end. Its pretty worn, obviously not seeing much rubber, lots of rocks and ruttiness.
At the road, we stopped and admired the views of the city and nearby rockfalls. Then off we headed down the road past the climber's cars, and right past the dodgy looking van that'd just parked up at Cavendish Saddle, where we found a trail i'd heard tell of; a sidling climbing track leading to the top of Mt Pleasant and its wee antenna cluster. It's reasonably well cut, kinda benched - making at least one of us wonder if it's merely the reinstatement of a much older trail; indeed, joke we did at the time that the Moriori or Picts had built it. At times quite steep, too. We rode it all til we basically lost it, mostly due to its barely developed state - picking our way where it should go to the gate for the aforementioned antennae. Easy slug up to the trig, enjoying the view of Lyttelton and Harbour environs, and not the wind, then it was over a fence into another antenna's enclosure onto bit of a trail that chokes up a bit before another fence, over and off down the left a bit finding it and then following it very enjoyably, down down, icecream headache eating into my brain, i stopped and swapped do-rag for pfmtbc buff and back onto the trail, down, struggling to know where it's going next thanks to tussocks uncut, down, eventually coming out to a gate on the top end of the track that crosses Greenwood just before the 'ruins'.
Saw a 29r dude down there. We headed down the 4wd track and into the single of Greenwood, passing the for some reason stalled dude, then on down, speed our companion over the bumps and cuttings. It's even feeling worn since our last working bee up there. Bit of a pause at the usual spot just after Gloomy Gulch and on down round, speedy speedy, down through all the new works, and there's Dave (b.a.s.i.c. mech) having a sandwich break from digging. Nice one Dave! He's currently responsible for the awesome carved berms all down that lower middle section. Sweeeeeet! Bit of a chat and onwards we rolled. For the first time in ages i cleaned the first little rocky step up, and we roosted out the rest. With relish!
At Evans we went and hit up the start of the Godley, just for a bit of practice. First try for both of us? Fail. Second try, both cleaned nicely, and went on to try out the newly cut line after the steep rocky section. All good. Turned around and bombed back through the saddle and got stuck into our relentless seemingly neverending climb back up to the top of Mt Pleasant Rd...
Eventually made the top, pulled up, hooked up and turned on our lights, and headed into Britten and the new trail down. Very nice indeed. Flowy, fun, ribbon of singletrack down. All's needed is a couple of formed berms on the two switchbacks and it would flow even better. At the fence we'd climbed on our way up we continued on past and when the 4wd track turned upwards, we started sidling off piste til eventually, under the pylon we hooked onto the usual down track and down through the gate and out to the road.
Fast blast down the road, into Craigieburn Pl and down to the steps. Step, step, step, waaaay too dodgy to ride, what with a nice warratah at the bottom, straight on the bikes and zig and zag and down down down down down, swooping through bushes, avoiding the worst ruts, bailing up blind corners, over the bridge and on down, over and down, finally hurtling the long straight to the end. Arriving at the car, kinda finally warmed up...
Thai, 8wired and a good chat to finish.
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