This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
The day started with a brisk ride out to Makara in glorious sunny weather for some of us, but the lazier people drove out. We gathered outside the Makara church until everybody arrived and then we were off.
We peddled along to the start of the track where we met Harry and his bunch of walkers and then we began the climb up a large hill which luckily, was on a good farm road. A rest stop at the top gave us the opportunity to have a drink and admire the views before heading off down and then up a bit of a gully until we had a view of the sea.
At that point some of us detoured off the track and took the most direct route down through some farm land and Christian provided some excellent entertainment. for some people as he took a spectacular tumble. We stopped at the bottom to consult the map and have a snack or two and once we had all refuelled and recuperated from the downhill we set off for the small grunt up and over to Ohau Bay where Christian again took a bit of a tumble.
Another grunt up a 200 metre hill followed but it was all for a good cause........ the downhill, upon which Allen managed to pick up the only puncture of the day!! This turned out to be quite convenient actually as our lunch stop was to be at the bottom of this hill.
We had a relaxing lunch in the sun in the middle of the goldfields and after a good rest and a bit of a history lesson, we charged off down Black Gully and out to Oteranga Bay which is on the south coast. We stopped for a rest beside the power cable terminal and gazed at what lay ahead of us. After a re-group we hit the hill and I think we came off second best!! The 350 metre climb brought us gasping and puffing to the top of the hill where we stopped and finished off the last of our water, hoping that there wouldn't be any more uphill!
A short rest stop rejuvenated us and the keen ones went up further onto Outlook Hill which involved another 20 metres of steep climbing. The views from the top were what you would expect - clear views of the South Island and lots of hilly farm land. But the reason we went up was to go down again and Brian Goodwin couldn't stay on, even when he sat on his pannier rack!
When we rejoined the rest of the group, we gathered our belongings together and set off for what promised to be an awesome downhill. Sure enough, after roaring along some flat terrain we came across it. Down we went all right!! At the bottom, with knees wobbling and eyes watering, we said our goodbyes as we all headed off on our separate ways. -
The Makara Mountain Bikers were: Eddie McKay, Tony Reeves, Steve Reeves, Tony Gazley, Brian Goodwin, Mark Goodwin, Lyle Mason, Daniel Mason, Wayne Stevens, Peter Knight, Christian Jorgensen, Daniel Meares, Peggy Christianson, Allen Higgins (Trip Leader), Paul Hughes, Brian Johnston and Julian Dirou (Scribe).