Day 6: Waikaia

Today was the crux day. The tracks into and out of Oteake are classified as grade 4 and 5 with warnings about deep water crossings, serious hills, technical riding, loose rocks and remote country. Anybody attempting these should be able to de drown a bike and carry out a reasonable amount of repairs in the event of mechanical issues. With Dave and my skill set I guess if one of the bikes popped out a tumour or needed some some computer work we would be good but for anything else we are probably poked. 

By the way I have no idea why I put myself through this. 

So needless to say we were pretty anxious and after a fitful nights sleep we headed out the door to face what may come at sunrise. We had only ridden a couple of hundred metres when I realised I couldn’t see anything. In my enthusiasm I had forgotten to put in my contact lens and so to the surprise of the lovely lady at the motel we reappeared 5 minutes later. With vision restored we did take 2. 

It’s called a challenge section and challenge it did. Steep up and downhills, and I mean steep. Deep creeks and all in the middle of fricken nowhere. But also set in the most incredible landscape. Big mountains that at times resembled mars (I assume, I haven’t been there).

Peaking at 1500m altitude the views captured the Southern Alps to the west with Aoraki poking over the horizon and Mt Aspiring further south. On top of the world. 

The descent was brutal with both of us coming off. To be honest, civilisation is under rated and we were pretty bloody happy to get back to Ranfurly , having taken 5 hours to ride 120km!

Bernie would have loved it. 

The rest of the day spent on easy gravel and the flowing Lake Onslow road which resembled a 70km farm race. 

The change in scenery also dramatic, eventually getting to green Southland, looking much like Europe but reflecting the recent heavy rain and floods. 

A great day, beer and pizza well earned. 

Tomorrow we cross over the Old Man range, back into central Otago, past Alex and Clyde, scene of many happy family holidays. 

On that note, today was Lucien’s last day at home before heading off to study in Dunedin. 

He is in my thoughts. 

As usual today’s pictures dont do it justice. I should have taken more but I was shitting myself too much!