Sunday, January 26, 2014

Tuesday (I think), 21st Jan, Totaranui - Awaroa - Totaranui with minor detour

Not much biking to be had in beautiful Totaranui, just lots of swimming and lounging around (drinking a lot of Hop Federation Red IPA... ahem (but oh so much better than MunkeeLizard) oh, and Golden Bear), so, finally, decided one day to brave the dust and the road.  Luckily there'd been a bit of rain to dampen the dust the day before, so it wasnt too bad.  Headed up the 4kms of just shy of 200m climbing to the turn off to Awaroa, and headed down that.  Maybe a 3rd of the way down, I took a short detour onto the Waiharakeke Track.  A steep, root infested jungle singletrack, seldom if ever walked, down into Waiharakeke Bay and the main Abel Tasman Track (naughty me, riding a walking track in a National Park...  Still - no sign saying "no bikes", so... fair game?  You decide).  If you look at it on a topomap, you'll see that after about 200 m it starts to follow a creek.  or rather, the track is the creek, or the creek is the track, anyway, i got to there and turned back, having to negotiate the roots and slickness back up, walking some of it.

Back onto the road, mostly down, the odd up, and then final flat to Awaroa Inlet.  Tide was out, so rode around the edge of it for a wee ways, turned around and rode back.  Only met 1 car on this road the whole way.  Climbed back up to the Totaranui Rd and bombed down this, overtaking a woman who was going very slow riding her brakes the whole way, while i was tucked into aerostylez and pedalling hard out of corners...  16kms total around 500m alt climbed and descended.

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