Adventures in 2013

The Broken River ski club is a club ski field located on the South Island of New Zealand. It is 100km west of Christchurch in the Craigieburn range.

The Wombat state forest is laced with trails. It is non technical and rather fun to explore. We started at the Bullengarook Reserve entrance. It is the second ride I did in this area just a few weeks ago.

For some insane reason I had ideas of riding back to Christchurch instead of going to Oamaru.  I was due to fly out to Melbourne on the 8th of April at 6:05am, today it is the 6th. According to Google it is 320km to the airport and will take 15 hours in one hit. Ok 10 hours today and 5 tomorrow, why not ? Why not indeed ! Google and reality are two different things.

After the big day yesterday of over 120km it was time to take it easy once again.  This journey was only about 30km. The trail wasn’t properly established as yet, so most of it was on the road.

I looked at the brochure and felt that paddling on a glacial pool would be right up my alley and a nice variation to riding every day. On this clear day the views of Aoraki were sublime, just making for a complete day of enjoyment.

The Alps to Ocean cycle trail officially starts at Aoraki (aka Mt Cook) then heads to Ohau, instead I started at Ohau and I am heading up to Aoraki via Twizel. On the information site it is a 38km ride to Twizel.

It is April fools day today, but I am no fool – it is time for a break.  My body was trashed, it’s time to have some down time.  Only a small amount of exploratory cycling and some walking today.

My plan was to ride to Cromwell then catch the 9:10am Intercity bus to Twizel. I know the alarm went off at 6:00am, I am sure it did. Perhaps I can get way with a bit more sleep, after all it’s an hour and 16 minutes according to Google to the station.   Shiddeeep ! it is now 7:00am, what the ……. My body was complaining big time. but it has an immediate and pressing mission. Dive into the Lycra, grab a few bread rolls and I’m off.

I felt good after a decent night’s rest and a great breakfast. It has been a rather big day yesterday. Today was sunny, but quite windy.  These open plains and mountain backdrops sure cause a bit of a blustering, and I’m glad to have a good set of wrap around sunglasses to keep the dust and bugs out.

I read with interest about the new “great cycle rides” in New Zealand; complementary to the “great walks” and learned that the Alps to Ocean ride was almost complete. Looking on the map it looks like I could do almost a loop with the Otago rail trail and the Alps to Ocean combined. So this was the combination that I’ve decided to do.