Rocks and Roots on The Old Coach Road

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There was a constant drizzle all morning but we decided to give mountain biking a go. We got dropped off with four bikes and cycled back to base along a 15 km old coach road. It took us up hill and down dale through canopy forests filled with Cabbage trees and giant fern trees. There were wide grassy parts, dark narrow paths, mud, cobbles, gravel, roots and rocks and to add a bit more spice, the drizzle kept going for the first couple of hours. All in all quite challenging terrain for Ed and Hat. Ed was a natural and led us most of the way., Hat was a bit unsure to start with but by the half way point she had she gotten into her stride and took the descents with a good line. There were some amazing old viaducts on route and we could cycle on one of them which was a bit hairy as you could see the forest floor far below. The route turned out to be a 3.5 hours and we were all in need of a big refill by the time we finished. A ski shack in the centre of Ohakune had oodles of savoury and sweet goodies to please the whole gang. Ed's comments on the day are: 'amazing mountain bike trail, best one ever, awesome viaducts, tired legs, jumptastic'. Hat's said 'amazing bike trail, a bit bumpy and rooty, fun and tiring'.
We set off north again and thought we'd try an unreviewed DOC site in the Owhango reserve. We realised why it had no reviews as it was a 30 minute gravel and stone track to get to the site. I took it slowly as our tyres are only insured for metalled roads and I didn't fancy trying to get our vehicle recovered from a one lane dirt track in the middle of nowhere. To top it off the site was a simply a narrow clearing without a view, so we turned tail and trooped all the way back to the main road and did another 30 minute stretch to a paid site.

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