This text was read by OCR from a scanned newsletter and has not been proofread yet, so expect odd characters and mistakes.
“Wanna go for a ride up to Karapoti — know a good one. Did it with the Kennett bros last year.” That was it. Having not been out in the hills for a while, this sounded like an excellent opportunity. The deal was to meet at Karapoti carpark and Steve would lead us into the hills, retracing a route he had done some time ago. So — Saturday morning arrives and we (Eric and l) arrive at the carpark a little late to find the others (Steve, Marcus and friend Malcolm) making last minute adjustments. Within seconds talk turned to the merits of Gerber versus Leatherman. The plan was to head up the gorge to Deadwood, then up Deadwood and take the second on the right and then back to the carpark via some devious route through the bush — or so it seemed.
The ride up the gorge was uneventful but as we neared the bottom of Deadwood, the landscape changed. Nothing like a few lumber jacks and bulldozers to make an impact on the environment — not to mention the mud on the road. With the recent rain, the road, tracks, and everything else in sight was slick. Up Deadwood and through the gate: “Shouldn't be far,” was the cry from our leader. However, as we went further up the road it seemed that things had changed since last —— +ime. We duly-arrived at the bot- _ tom of the second-on-the-right amongst mud and logging debris. “Up there?” “Yeah — right.” It was left to Steve to lead the way. Reckoned he rode all the way up last time (likely story). Within a few minutes we were all walking, either overcome by the mud or the hill,
or both. Twenty minutes or so later and we were standing on the top, still in the mud and on the top of the wrong damn hill. A quick check of the map shed no light on the situation. So there was nothing to do but to go back down — via a different route. Fortunately a bulldozer had been down some time recently and flattened the toi toi and other vegetation, making it possible to ride most of the way down. There was one slight deviation into a deadend on the way but before long we were perched on a log at the side of Deadwood Road, trying to figure out where to go next. We eventually decided to head back down and try another route; however, on the way back down the road we found what we had missed on the way up — the real “secondon-the-left”. “How did you miss that?” “Things have changed since last time.” (Only cut down a few trees — the road hadn’t moved.) So we headed up the hill, confident that our leader was finally heading in the right direction. The track was a reasonable gradient all the way to the top, where we found an old truck that marked the beginning of the real part of the ride. This truck had obviously seen better days and was a testament to the saying “rust never sleeps”. From here the track was to follow what was once a logging tram road, through native bush back to the carpark. The first part wasn’t too bad, mostly rideable, with frequent stops to climb under/over windfalls or other obstacles. The track had been used by motorcycles recently and was well rutted in places, making riding tricky at times for those of us who were less disposed to technical riding. After about an hour we arrived at a fork that appeared to indicate the limit of the motor cycle tracks. It soon became obvious that there was a good reason for this, as from here on the track deteriorated severely, to the point where the ride became more of a tramp than a ride. Needless to say, Steve was getting plenty of stick about the state of the track. Before long the state of the track was such that we spent more time on our feet than riding, eventually ending up in a creek, boulder hopping downstream with our bikes on our shoulders. Back on the track, conditions were not much better. The track had climbed high above the creek when suddenly it ended. The obvious route was straight down about ten metres and then up a rock face about five metres high on the other side. “Oh yeah — I remembered we could have brought a rope,” said our leader.
A human chain was formed and the bikes were lowered down and then hauled up the other side. From here, it was more of the same, until we eventually dropped out towards the Karapoti again, the last stage being slightly more rideable. So, four hours after heading out we were back at the carpark, ‘still ar-— - guing over Gerber versus Leatherman and telling Steve that the next time he said “bike ride” we would bring our tramping boots. Anyhow, it was actually a great ride in good company. Thanks Steve — next time I'll take my tramping boots! rN
WI&MC July 1997
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Don Goodhue