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Published: March 15th 2007
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HANMER SPRINGS TO ST ARNAUD VIA RAINBOW STATION
We arrived at Hanmer Springs late in the afternoon and checked into our accommodation for the night, the Hanmer Springs YHA, this is a new complex and we had a very enjoyable stay
The following morning we decided on a bike ride in the Hanmer Forest, Hanmer is well set up for Mountain biking with a large network of trails both easy and ranging up to very hard ones, the forest was originally planted as a trial planting area years ago by the NZ Forest Service and includes many exotic species not normally seen on a commercial basis in New Zealand
Our ride took us to the Hanmer Cemetery and back again to the Hostel where we packed up and headed for St Arnaud in the Nelson Lakes National Park via the St James and Rainbow Station road, this road is not normally open for public use, but during a few months of summer you can pay to get a gate key and drive this amazing road and view the special scenery.
The road follows the Clarence river for some time with wide flats of tall mountain grasses,dozens of
cattle stops, fords, one way bridges and gates to be opened, the surface was mainly good gravel.
We only met one other car and 3 cyclists for the 6 or so hours we spent on this gravel road.
Two of the cyclists I met when I had decided to ride one of the downhill sections on my bike, we had climbed to the top of the Island saddle in the 4WD at about 1347 metres.
The downhill trip lasted for about 4 k m's and I came across two cyclists pushing their bikes up he very steep grade. Each one of them was standing in the only part of the track that had no loose gravel on it, just staring up at this crazy cyclist coming to wards them at speed, I was hoping that one of them would move out of the way as my brakes were not pulling me up very fast and I had visions of pranging into them, you cant brake too heavily on these roads at speed as the back wheel ends up skidding and before you know what has happened you are a mangled mess on the road.
Luckily I managed to stop
and had a chat with these guys, they easily had about 15 years on the older side of me and had cycled from Murchison, many kilometres away. Here I was all fresh and clean having only cruised down the hill, I had to mumble that part to them when they asked where I had come from.
The gravel road is 112 kilometres long from Hanmer Springs to St Arnaud, and I cycled onto the Sedgemere Lakes Hut, where we stopped for lunch, it was very warm and the shelter was much appreciated
The route from here then entered Hells Gate, great scenery and into a narrow gorge rather than the
wide open river flats we had been traveling on for the previous two days.
We arrived at St Arnaud once again quite late in the afternoon having had an amazing day, a quick look around the village after booking into our hostel and booking in for dinner at the cafe.
The sunset on the lake wa beautiful and the eels swimming around the wharf were huge, they are protected here and the sign said some of them had lived over 50 years
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