Words & Images Gary Sullivan

We decided to head to the South Island for a holiday because I had just got back from a holiday in the South Island.

I wanted a repeat.

It had been a long five years since we’d last crossed the Strait with our little caravan, and it was an easy sell: Glen is always up for a road trip, and she really loves the West Coast. We booked the first ferry we could get a slot on, hooked up the bach-on-wheels, and hit the road.

That first holiday goes something like this…. Thirteen years ago, a trail was opened that roughly follows a route through the mountains, imagined by gold miners in the 1800s. It’s called the Old Ghost Road, and is a bucket list ride for any keen mountain biker. In fact, it’s such a bucket lister that I rode some of it before it was finished, and could tell back then that it was going to be something special. Nearly everybody I know had managed to organise the time and logistics to get down there, but I hadn’t. Things I thought were more important at the time got in the way. Work stuff, other great rides elsewhere, illness, house building. I just hadn’t got around to it.

Last year, I met up with a friend from Queensland who mentioned he was organising an upcoming junket with some other people. The plan was to do some riding around the top of the South Island, including the Old Ghost Road. I jumped on board.

I met the gang in Wellington the day before we were to make the Cook Strait crossing. John had hired a vintage Toyota Hiace and a trailer for the bikes and bags, which made things simple for me. Get myself to Wellington and ditch my own van at a mate’s place, then relax and ride.

As a bonus, we had time to get a ride in at Makara Peak in Wellington before going south.

I have ridden a bit around Wellington but to my everlasting shame had never made it to Makara, even though it has been in development for something like 25 years. Well, I have now, and it won’t be the last time. It was amazing, and we only dipped a toe in the Makara offering.

The trail builders of Makara hew their routes out of difficult terrain – there is a lot of solid rock to be hacked through. Pedaling out of the main car park, we climbed the sublime Koru trail. It really is a work of art; a climbing trail that is actually fun is a rarity around my way.

Once we reached the summit of the park (which felt like the summit of Wellington), we were treated to massive views, an info station mounted on an outsize bike chain, and even a couple of charging stations for eBikes. I didn’t stick a fork in them to find out, but they looked legit. Just who would cart a charger up there to re-energise for a ride back downhill was not clear, but I guess somebody must.

We took a very entertaining intermediate level run back to where we started, then climbed the thing again via a slightly more taxing route. A few of us took a loop around the high point then jumped on a flow trail back to town. We finished on what some of us reckoned was one of the best bits of trail in our entire trip: it’s called Starfish, and ticks a lot of boxes.

The trip to Nelson took most of the next day, but we still had time to hook up with Mick, a local contact who showed us how to get to Codgers, the trail network closest to town. He led us up another surprisingly pleasant climb to a couple of what Nelson riders consider basic trails. A good way to get oriented, figure out where we were in relation to the riding, and get a taste of the dry and rocky terrain. Back in Rotorua, we have a few rocks in the forest – and we can count them all without having to use our toes. Down here, rocks are everywhere; some are attached firmly to the planet, many are not. In a mellow 18km we still managed an overall up- and-down totaling 726m – that would rank as a big ride back home. Down here, at the ride’s high point, we got a great outlook over town, but also had to crane our necks to look at the peaks behind us, allegedly full of more trails.

There is a mind-boggling selection of riding options down that way, and a couple of days was nowhere near enough to ride even a small fraction of them. We headed out to Cable Bay Adventure Park the following morning. After signing on at a very nicely set up hub, we hooked up with Mick again and crammed 741m of up- and-down into a scant 13km of distance.

We only tackled trails that are tame by local standards, but provided plenty of challenges for me, thank you very much. The first downhill run was called Broken Gnome, and according to my GPS dropped 210m in less than a kilometre. If I wasn’t following a local, I might have chickened out in a few spots but I was already starting to trust the available traction as long as I could stay on the rocks that were firmly anchored. It was steep, and fun. The rest of that ride was a blur, but followed that theme. I have been hearing about a ride near Nelson called the Coppermine Loop for what seems like forever. I was hoping to fit it in while we were stooging around the region. I didn’t expect anybody to suggest doing it late on the same afternoon of the Cable Bay day, but that is what happened.

We headed out at about 4pm. The ride starts with a climb that covers about 20 kilometres at a railroad grade, because that’s what it is. Some 150 years ago, a crew mined Chromite high in the hills behind Nelson, and they used a simple tram line to send the ore down to a depot in town. Horses would pull the empty wagons up to nearly 900m above the town, they would be filled with ore and return using gravity, with a brakeman controlling the pace.

We performed a similar routine, only without horses. And, we used gravity to descend via a much steeper route into a different valley.

The descent into Maitai Valley is half an hour of maximum fun. The trail is dual-use, with signs everywhere reminding you to watch out for walkers. The descent features dozens of beautifully bermed corners which are begging to be railed. There are also lots of rocks. We didn’t see any walkers.

We got back to the motel in the dark, a really big day complete.

Our next destination was Kaiteriteri, a short drive from Nelson and the jumping off point to Abel Tasman National Park. A beautiful spot crawling with tourists and day-trippers, but also hiding a very cool little mountain bike park. Small in area, but with plenty of elevation, it is worth a visit if you are down that way. We started early the next day, to get to the Wairoa Gorge Mountain Bike Park. A visit to this place was another compelling reason to join this junket. It was created, in large part, by a good mate of ours who died way too early. Dodzy was a force of nature, and when he connected, by chance, with a very wealthy guy with an interest in mountain biking, a short-lived phenomenon was born. It’s a whole other story you probably already know, but Wairoa was one of the projects executed by the company formed to develop trails on land the guy owned all over the planet. He moved on from mountain biking, and now Wairoa is owned by New Zealand and leased to the Nelson Mountain Bike Club.

It is probably the most exclusive MTB park in the world. The shuttle-only access to the 70+ kilometres of hand-built trails is usually maxed out at 27 people; the day we visited, there were 18. Two nine-person truckloads of people in a massive slice of forested mountain is pretty much nobody – we felt like we had the place to ourselves. The shuttle is long, and gets riders to about 1200m. The descent is MUCH longer – at the pace I could manage, each run took over half an hour. The trails are graded, and routes have been created using a numerical system to let riders figure out a way down that suits their skill set.

A few of us who rode together, dropped four times – and two hours of riding downhill on fresh trails takes more energy than you might think.

There are three options at Wairoa for accommodation, we were in the largest – a very nice chalet near the base of the gorge. Two other huts higher up look really good too. If you have a gang keen for a weekend away, the Gorge is worth a look.

We tackled the Old Ghost Road as a two-day trip, staying for a night at Ghost Lake hut. There are four huts managed by the Lyell-Mohikinui Back Country Trust which can be booked at the official Old Ghost Road website. There are also two DOC huts, which are first-come, first- served. The LMBC huts are top-notch, and have kitchen facilities with everything you might need except ingredients; there are firebox heaters with wood provided, basic showers, toilets – they are well-insulated and have great locations.

The first day for us was a climb…. 27 kilometres of climbing to Ghost Lake. There is a brief respite halfway up, at Lyell Saddle. We dropped in to the Lyell hut for a snack and a sit-down on the sunny deck, with a huge view over the ranges to the north. A gang of excitable women had chosen Lyell as their first stop on a five- day walk, and they were all either laughing or yelling at each other at once. There were more of them en route, so we were kind of glad to be staying further along the trail.

The highlight of the ride, for me anyway, was the section before Ghost Lake where the trail reaches its highest point at 1344m. Well above the tree line, it sidles along the faces of a ridge, with massive views. We were lucky to have two bluebird days and the outlook from those heights will always be a strong memory of the first day’s ride.

A short drop into the trees brought us to Ghost Lake hut, perched on a ridge and overlooking the distant town of Murchison, where that morning we were buying extra trail food, eating pies and drinking coffee.

I had the foresight to cram a can of beer into my overloaded pack, and I was relieved to find it hadn’t been pierced by anything along the way. I inhaled it on the deck of the hut, feeling extremely fortunate and grateful for everything about the day. It was already cold, and pretty soon it was freezing – literally: when I ventured outside at about 2am for a pee, there was ice on the ground.

John had organised a helicopter drop of food and sleeping bags; the food was freeze-dried and, with the addition of boiling water, turned into something edible. The sleeping bag was absolutely perfect.

Our second day was hard to fault.

The trip from Ghost Lake hut to the finish is 56 kilometres by my count, and descends 1200 metres. There are some seriously cool sections of flowing trail through exceptional forest scenery and I forced myself to stop a few times to look at it. There are also 827 metres of climbing, so it is not an easy day.

The Old Ghost Road was a perfect exclamation point on a quick sampling of the riding in the top of the south.

So perfect, in fact, that I couldn’t wait to do it again. Literally, I could not wait. So I didn’t.

And that is why we headed south a few days after I returned from the first trip.

One of the common themes of the last decade has been a recurring conversation with Graeme, a riding mate. We have talked about riding the Old Ghost Road every summer, and every summer we didn’t get there. Now I had sneaked off and ridden it without him. Another easy sell: we are going down there, we will have a vehicle, let’s get this done.

He signed on, and we set a dateline for the project.

Looking back, it is hard to believe I only got five rides done in a month of wandering around the top of the South, but we were so busy doing bugger-all that that’s all I had time for. Reading books for a start. We try to read books when occupied with normal life, but the luxury of reading one in a single gulp with no stops for any annoying responsibilities is very good. And having a pile of them to get through is even better. We found a reconstituted refrigerator in the main street of Takaka that had become a free book exchange, and we hung around in Golden Bay for a week of bad weather making full use of it.

Loafing along deserted beaches also chopped out extensive periods of time. We are so lucky in this little South Seas paradise, there are so many places that are easy to get to with nobody else in attendance.

Then there are the simple pleasures of doing stuff in a small caravan. Everything takes a bit longer than it does back home. Those are my excuses, but while the rides turned out to be few and far between, they were stellar.

I did a birthday lap of a trail in Whites Bay on our second day in the South Island as a sort of warm up, then spent a few days slacking.

The next outing was another tilt at the Coppermine Loop. The feature of that day, for me, was the feeling that comes with a seemingly endless vista of mountain ranges away to the south of the Coppermine Saddle. There is nothing man-made in view except the trail, and even though Nelson is very close it is hidden and therefore out of mind. It is a ride, but somehow more of an adventure than doing a similar distance and elevation back home.

We visited Kaiteriteri again, had another outing in the great little bike park there, explored Golden Bay between rainstorms, and ended up getting as far south as Hokitika.

The best night of the trip was a simple roadside pull-off, perched on the side of Highway 6, a couple of steps from a wild and windswept stretch of rocks, sand and surf.

My main target for the West Coast leg of the expedition was the Paparoa Track.

We parked up at Punakaiki Campground, an absolute bottler of a place to hang out. Another spectacular beach to explore, Paparoa National Park near at hand, all overhung by massive jungle-strewn cliffs straight out of King Kong.

The campground operates a daily shuttle around to Blackball, where the Paparoa starts. I booked a trip for the following day, and we holed up while the West Coast did what it does fairly often: rain.

The forecast for the next day looked pretty dire, but the day after was not so bad. I switched my booking, and we spent the spare day hiking around in the rain.

When the day arrived, I was up early, packing everything I thought might be needed for a solo ride in remote country. The Paparoa is doable as a single day mission, and that was my plan, but I carted along a pile of food, spares and extra layers just in case it turned into something longer.

The shuttle got me around to the start by about ten. By the time I got underway, it was steadily raining. The rocky trail was drenched. The first ten kilometres is in the forest and, after a short descent, there is a climb to about 1000m that doesn’t let up.

Just before I reached the tree line, I came upon an apparition: two little girls in festive- looking outfits, walking down the trail towards me. They were about six or seven years old by my estimation, and were incredibly cute. One of them politely said, “good luck, you’re nearly there!” I was briefly mystified, but round the next curve was their mother, with an even younger offspring, and carrying an enormous pack. Parenting done correctly.

Soon enough, the trees opened up into the sub-alpine tussock. At about the same time, the clouds lifted, and the first hut came into view.

From there, the trail follows a ridge for what I reckon was the best part of 20 kilometres. It is not easy, constantly rising and falling as it switches from one side of the range to the other; in some places it sketched along the very top of the ridge, only a few metres wide.

Long views back into the Brunner Valley were swapped for expanses of the coast, as the trail stitched a course along the spine of the Paparoa range.

The eventual descent through cloud forest and down into the rainforest below was a highlight of an amazing day. Threading its way down through huge boulders, waterfalls, and crossing a really cool swing bridge, the trail becomes an easy run through some regenerating forest following the Punakaiki River. The final sting in the tail comes with five kilometres to go, a steep little climb that is relieved by the beauty of the forest it clambers through.

We spent a couple of days getting ourselves up to the amazing Gentle Annie campground on the north bank of the Mohokinui River mouth, handy to the end of the Old Ghost Road.

A fairly simple logistical exercise was then executed: I met up with my mate Graeme at Westport, and we drove up the Buller Gorge to the start of the OGR. We ditched the van there, depositing the keys in a locker box for the very accommodating Buller Adventures team to collect and deliver to the other end of the ride.

Our first day on the OGR was a mirror of the ride I had done a month earlier, with the added feature of some constantly mobile clouds in the valleys making the vistas from the tops even more interesting.

Our night in the Ghost Lake hut was entertaining; it was almost at capacity with an even split between riders and walkers. The main topic of conversation was the weather – the cloud closing in as darkness fell looked ominous, but a young fella doing the ride with his parents assured us that if we could get through to the end before 2pm the next day, we would be dry.

Graeme went outside at 2am and came back in to report that it was pissing down.

The dawn was grey and wet. We had a slow start, lingering over coffee while we peered out into the gloom, but eventually it was time to go.

As soon as we were on the trail, the weather became irrelevant. The look of the place was completely transformed. Shifting cloud exposed glimpses of the terrain, just enough to confirm we were on an exposed spine with dramatic spaces below.

After clambering down the very awkward stairs, the ride through the forest was so different to my previous trip that it was like a strange new planet. Everything was wet. Water was everywhere, running down small courses and across the trail, dripping off every element of the forest, and completely soaking us. The trail can handle it, rain is a regular part of the west coast and everything that can be washed away probably already has been, and the rocky trail was never a problem.

In the entire day of bucketing rain the bikes ran like clockwork. At a riverside stop for refueling, we noted how amazing mountain bikes have become. Everything worked, gears shifted, brakes slowed us down, suspension floated us along, seat droppers dropped and returned to their original position. We swapped recollections of bikes that ceased to function on days like this.

Somehow, the weather put an extra layer of meaning on the day. The ride seemed much longer than the dry version, and just as memorable. The van was waiting for us in the carpark at the trail terminus, and I backed it under the little shelter so we could get into some dry gear and pile the dripping carnage of the day into the back for the run back down to Westport with the heater going full blast.

I dropped Graeme off and headed back up to Gentle Annie, where I had a long and very satisfying shower.

I consider myself very fortunate. Besides winning the life lottery of being born in Aotearoa, I have managed to ride my bike in some cool places around the planet. I can honestly say, the opportunities we have here at home are as good as anywhere else I have been.