Long rideable, off-road mountain bike trails in the North Island of NZ have until now been hard to come by. Lucky for us the lovely John Key has put aside some cash and resources to build some trails up and down the country – thanks John for this great initiative http://www.nzcycletrail.com/
Anyway we were looking for a ride to do over the Xmas break and decided to give the recently opened 100km Waikato River Trails ride a go. The website calls it a 3-4 day ride so we were pretty sure it would provide us with a pretty full on day out – we were NOT disappointed !!. Woo hoo what a day !
January 2, 2012 dawned bright and early and Cath, Andrew, Rob, Marquita, Anne and I scurried around our motel unit trying to get packed and sorted for the big day out. Food and water for 8- 10 hours – check, sun screen – check, bikes – check, camera – check, phone – check, maps – check helmet, gloves, shoes – check, car keys check.
This ride is unfortunately a one way trail as opposed to a loop so instead of riding there and back we managed to talk a few more friends Di, Roel, Ally and Hagi into doing it from the other direction and had swapped keys the night before on the off-chance that we didn’t see each other on the trail.
After swinging by and picking up Aiden we headed to Waipapa dam carpark to leave a car for Andrew who knows us all too well and decided that 50 km would probably be plenty to keep him happy.
After dropping the car at Waipapa we continued down to Atiamuri where we found a carpark at the start of the trail to leave our cars for the others to collect. As we pulled up we noticed a lovely gentleman called Glyn dropping some other riders off in his shuttle bus and trailer (Glyn provides all sorts of services to do with the trail he can be contacted via the Waikato River Trails website http://www.waikatorivertrails.com/
How exciting ! We bailed out of the car unpacked our gear and headed off on the first leg of the trail 23km to Whakamaru. Although this section of the trial is graded easy according to the Waikato river trails website we found it reasonably technical in terms of riding ability due to the number of slippery roots – granted it had been raining a lot prior to us riding the trails but it was definitely challenging terrain and not somewhere I would be happy sending my Mum. (no offense Mum) It took us 2 hours to travel the 23kms to Whakamaru !!
At Whakamaru we had a bit to eat, talked to a few people who were interested in the trail and continued on. The next section from Whakamaru to Maretai was 15.7kms and the trail was in much better nick and it is definitely a trail I would take Mum on – what an awesome section this was with smooth free flowing trails. There were certainly lots of great views and lots of whoopps and weeeees coming from us all. Unfortunately, just after one of the amazing swing bridges on the trail Andrews freewheel went which meant he was now effectively riding a fixie. He nursed his bike through to Maretai where he bailed out onto the road and back to the car which was luckily waiting at Waipapa.
Meanwhile, the rest of us continued along the trail to Waipapa. This 14.6 km section was probably the hilliest of the day and gave us quite a workout but for me it was the most enjoyable as we travelled through some beautiful forest tracks and trails. Half way through this leg we met up with the others and had a quick catch up before pushing on to the car at the Waipapa Dam. Luckily Andrew’s bike had held together and he had managed to limp his way back to the car and even more luckily we had left extra water and food in the car – by now it was a sticking hot day and we were all relieved to have a chance to fill up our bottles and bladders.
Just as we were ready to leave on the next 33.8km leg to Arapuni the Waipapa Dam opened and we were treated to a view of the dam in action. Awesome. Once again we were off and at em and doing our best to eat up the kms on the track. This leg was also hilly and reasonably challenging in the heat of the day but full of surprises with varying terrain, stairs, bridges, quarries and long ups and long downs.
All too soon we were on the last 13.7km leg from Arapuni to Pokaiwhenua Bridge carpark where the cars were waiting for us. This leg had a reasonable amount of road in it so we managed to cover the distance in pretty good time. I think we were all pretty happy to see the cars but also a little sad that it was coming to an end.
So to summarise we travelled 100km in around 9 hours and 15mins and a bloody good day out. We’ll be back for sure. The only issue I had with the trail is the lack of facilities at the end of each stage. It would have been great if there were toilets and water available at both ends of the trail, as well as at the ends of the various stages. Granted we were in a hurry and didn’t really make an effort to look around too much for shops and facilities but from memory I didn’t see any shops or toilet blocks. Also we were gutted to find that the infamous Rhubarb Café was closed until Jan 6 - next time we’ll be heading there for sure – I hear it is a little piece of heaven!
For those of you who are wondering which way is best – we thought our way was easiest and the others thought their way was easiest … We did a comparison on metres ascended and the guys who travelled North to South climbed around an additional 100 metres than we did travelling South to North.
