Staying at Collingwood, rode along the beach 4kms to Milnethorpe for a bit of a leg stretch. Whilst there, I bumped into one of the Ground Effectors, who has a bach at Milnethorpe, brief chat and then I rode a couple of slightly dodgy (but sweet) tracks back to the beach, and then back the 4kms along the sand to the house. Later in the day him and family popped in and visited for a bit. He knows his way around these parts, and so told me about the local riding: built and maintained mostly by Martin who runs the Takaka bike shop.
So, on his advice, later on, I drove round and parked at corner of Parapara Valley Rd, then headed up the highway a km or so then up a DOC access track. Climbed to the seat at pretty near the top,
somewhere around 300m. Had spotted about 3 different options off the climbing track on way up, so hooned back to the last one, chasing a falcon spectacularly on the way, and dropped in (bars unable to fit one of the entrance options). Tight rough single track meandering quite steeply down thru the regenerating scrub, manuka trunks trying their darnedest to snag my bars. Eventually down into valley bottoms and flats across, a couple creek crossings, then opening up and out to a quad bike sized trail.
Headed upwards and found my way onto what turned out to be one of the earlier tracks off the climb; zigged and zagged my up it back to the DOC track, up this a little way then back down to and down that which I'd just climbed. Fun descent back to where I'd come out earlier. (Spotted an exit here right next to where I'd come out earlier - filed for future reference). On from here down fast descending on quite open trail, regen bush, flying, one other option to explore next time, then more valley bottom rolling, out to a groovy gate and a driveway down to the road and then back along a km or so of gravel road to the car.
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