Easter 2009 a group of about 20 Birkenhead Pointers cycled the Otago Rail Trail. We were so enthused by the experience that some of us bought mountain bikes to enjoy similar trail riding together at weekends around Auckland. There remains a core of 6 Point Peddlers (three are skiers with "knee issues") who have cycled various trails from former rail corridors with wide and gentle gradients and progressed to more seriously hilly & technical trails.
Easter 2012 found us back in Ohakune riding The Old Coach Road. This trail is a former horse-and-coach cobble-stoned route between Horopito & Ohakune which took passengers to link with the trains before the Raurimu Spiral rail link was completed in 1910.
Next day one of our party cycled the 18 kms UP the Turoa mountain road... I joined him to ride down at an exhilerating 65kph, of course taking less than a third of the time he took to ride up. This road is the start of the Mountain to the Sea Cycle Trail which will eventually link continuously with other completed sections to the West Coast at Stratford.
Other sections of the Mountain to Sea route ridden include:
- 42nd Traverse 46 kms behind Owhango and real gut buster with some walking
- Fishers Track 28 kms mostly downhill from National Park Rail Station to Owhango
- Bridge to Nowhere 40 kms with a jet boat out to Pipriki on the Wanganui River
(see
www.visitruapehu.com for more detailed information on these and other rides)
The bush, the scenery, the isolation, the history and the views can only be experienced by "being there". Stops are mandatory for us, ostensibly to take a photo (a few attached) but really to take a breather. The exercise of cycling is without ski-type impact on the old knees, but the challenges and adrenalin rushes and occasional falls continue.
There are some gentle family trails within Ohakune township and some more technical local club trails south near Karori rail station. Most of the longer trails are not recommended after heavy rain so summer is the ideal time, and of course it's only 40 minutes to Ohakune from Boomerang Lodge and bikes can be hired in Ohakune.
Boomerang Ski Club is working to develop a "reciprocal accommodation" arrangement with another Club Lodge in Ohakune, so you may soon be able to stay in Ohakune at "member rates" in summer and the snow season (watch this space).
I thoroughly recommend Ohakune cycle trails for families and geriatrics alike. We'll be back again... maybe for those Ruapehu-winter-no-ski days we'll take our bikes or hire them. (bike racks in the Lodge?????)
Meantime this weekend we're off to our local "training" trails in Woodhill Forest and our next adventure is probably parts of the former rail corridor which will eventually run from Thames to Paeroa via the Karagahake Gorge.
"You never forget how to ride a bike."
