Aorere Gold, Wednesday 11th

Today, family headed round to the Devil's Boots and parked at the gate at the end of the road. O and me riding, the rest walking. The two of us headed up the 4wd track (the others, the walktrack that we'd ride down later). Steep heat, hot sun pounding down, hardly any shade, resting in it when we could. Got to the turn off left and headed into some trail I'd never done, but some of the boys had come thru on the Golden Bay trip of a few years back.  More up and down than I'd expected, but eventually we got to where the ill-fated Bedstead Gully track came out (having been cleared apparently a couple weeks after O and me rode it last year). Last couple of climbs and we descended to Druggans Dam. Snacked here and got going again dropping the tech down to the water race, O crashing hard on the steep - front wheel dropping into a hole and OTB onto a prostrate tree, scuffing his four corners.  He lay there a while before getting up, but soldiered on brilliantly, keeping up with me on most of the waterrace from there on around.

Around the water race to the caves, popped down to both, nice and cool in the Ballroom cave, total respite from the muggy heat outside, but the others weren't at either, so we kept going down the trail. Woot!!! Caught them up, giving them a hell of a fright, then bombed onwards the car, meeting some other riders on their way up.  Loaded up our bikes on the car and then drove cloading it up and driving through the gate and further up to the beginning of the tracks to wait, only a few minutes, forty the family.

Roughly 10kms and a hot steep 270m climbed