Up in Kaiks for Jana's 40th. I took my opportunity for a quick spin around a bit of The Kaikoura Trail on the fatty. Mostly road but some quite fun singletrack. Headed out, without water or tools, no backpack, along Hawthorne Rd (which is bike/pedestrian bridge since quakes), to the end, then up Mt Fyffe Rd for a while. Right onto Topline and across this to Waimangarara River, where a short section of twisty singletrack through dark exotic deciduous forest takes you through to the Koura 'Resort'. There was an offshoot of singletrack near the end that I wished I'd explored, but didn't - save that for another day.
Back onto the roads again, through the golf 'resort' and then left onto Bay Paddock Rd, up to Grange which takes you across to the Hapuku River. Down into a storage area of large rocks (so many rocks!) and the Hapuku is running very grey and milky (ever since the quake, apparently - draining all those slips and dams). Bit messy here with big ponds semi-flooding the track, but once into the woods, it was cool. Fun twisty, reasonably low speed singletrack ducking and weaving through mostly indigenous scrub. Bands of manuka, followed by podocarp and all sorts. Went on for much longer than I'd have expected too, tho all up only a couple of kms and I was out onto the SH1. Crossed this and ducked into Lovers Lane expecting to just ride it, but nope, the singletrack continues, albeit not as well formed and rather bumpy, for about another km then back onto the road to take down to Hapuku village around and onto Old Beach Rd for the tailwind cruise back to town.
27 or so kms, with not much altitude - couple hundy metres.
Back onto the roads again, through the golf 'resort' and then left onto Bay Paddock Rd, up to Grange which takes you across to the Hapuku River. Down into a storage area of large rocks (so many rocks!) and the Hapuku is running very grey and milky (ever since the quake, apparently - draining all those slips and dams). Bit messy here with big ponds semi-flooding the track, but once into the woods, it was cool. Fun twisty, reasonably low speed singletrack ducking and weaving through mostly indigenous scrub. Bands of manuka, followed by podocarp and all sorts. Went on for much longer than I'd have expected too, tho all up only a couple of kms and I was out onto the SH1. Crossed this and ducked into Lovers Lane expecting to just ride it, but nope, the singletrack continues, albeit not as well formed and rather bumpy, for about another km then back onto the road to take down to Hapuku village around and onto Old Beach Rd for the tailwind cruise back to town.
27 or so kms, with not much altitude - couple hundy metres.
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