NZAU Day 7 KM 65, The Timber Trail

To read from the beginning, click here.

It rained most of the night. We got up at 6 am to get an early start on the next part of the trail. We skipped making coffee and breakfast to get on the way faster. Cloudy, but no more rain. Already we were having doubts about how rough this trail was (we had info that it was gravel, but mostly it was single track MTB intermediate level). However, our only other option was to back track the way we came and ride by road to Taumarunui where we were catching the bus on Thursday. That option didn’t appeal to either of us, so we sallied on.

As we were packing up, a cyclist with a yellow safety vest rode up to the hut. We thought he was a DOC ranger at first (Department Of Conservation, the overseeing agency for the trail). Turns out he was an Aussie. Jason was doing a gravel ride the length of the islands and had two broken spokes on his rear wheel. Pretty rough trail to do with a “wobbly wheel” as he called it, but just about as dicey as us doing it with 37mm tires and a full touring load. We snapped a pic and wished him well.

The overnight rain left the trail pretty muddy. We were also at mile 5 of the steep climb up to 3185 ft at 8 miles. It was rough going and we walked most of it, Dana less so than I, but still a good portion. The conditions weren’t great with some deep mud holes and a lot of exposed rocks and roots. To say it was tough was an understatement, but more on that later.

We made it to the top and got ready for the descent to Piropiro, 20 miles away where we knew there was a lodge where we could stop. It wasn’t much better on the way down as there were a lot of washouts. It was a plus that we were going downhill, mostly, but that also meant keeping the brakes on — no barreling down the trail with 80lbs of bike and gear. Neither of us are mountain bikers and this was definitely single track riding. Quite unnerving at times.

A bonus of the Timber Trail (TT) was the suspension bridges. I lost count, but there are a lot and they are high and long and amazingly stable, and all the brochures show a smiling couple. Dana doesn’t like heights and she walked the first one, but rode the rest. One downside was that the bridges were always at the bottom of a downhill run with a climb out on the other side. Other than Jason, we were passed by a couple of mountain bikers on standard MTBs and an older couple on e-Mountain Bikes. Between the trail conditions and the continued climbing, by the time we got to Piropiro in the afternoon, we were pretty spent.

We weren’t quite sure where the lodge was and asked another passing gravel bike packer, and eventually we found it. Pretty much a lifesaver, and we had a couple of pizzas and cokes, charged our devices and power packs, and got a little bit of much needed rest. The lodge was halfway on the trail and hosted a lot of folks doing the trail in two days on full suspension e-MTBs. A number of them asked us, “How do you find those bikes on the trail?”, meaning, “What the hell are you doing riding those bikes on this trail?” “Not great,” we would answer, but in reality, aside from the extra weight, they were doing pretty well.

It was Wednesday at around 3 PM, and we had reservations for a bus at 3:15 PM on Thursday. No time for resting, and we headed out onto the second half of the trail. Those commentators on our bikes also promised that the last part of the trail was downhill, after one more big climb. Not what we saw on the map, and as we headed out we were soon going up again. We ran into a section that was being rebuilt and the sole worker, an older man with a jolly demeanor, told us “Straight away up there and it gets flat!” Well, “straight away” was about 2 miles of up through the dirt track that his little dozer had carved out. And we were far from done with the up and down.

Our worker friend also suggested the hut at KM 65 as a good place to stay for the night, so that’s where we headed. It was a similar hut, but this time the floor was concrete, so we opted for that, put our bags on the benches and the bikes outside, and went right to bed. An old, retired sleeping pad I had had a saying on it, “Sleep well tonight, Tomorrow might be rough!” G’nite!