Ultimate South Island adventure ride?

[Ruralman]

Who is interested in a trip around the South Island sometime Nov-Feb - the game plan is to drive over every "Pass" on either sealed or gravel roads in the South Island. There's quite a big list, and I reckon it can be done in 4-5 days without going completely nuts.

[Transalper]

Interested I am, but i can usually only manage 3 days of freedom Friday morning to Sunday evenings or maybe over the week of Christmas to New Year.

[Ruralman]

By my current count there are 20 Passes to get over and I don't know how far to travel but it must be close to 1500-2000km. Given some of them are on back roads I don't think less than 4 days would work - unless you want to ride for 8-10 hrs per day plus stops??

[Transalper]

split the trip into two weekends and i can go anytime. Otherwise i'd join in where ever you are on a Friday and farewell you Sunday arvo. Unless it's the week between Christmas and New Year... or Easter (but thats a long way off).
And i prefer big riding hours(about 8 or 9 hours is good), including short stops, but by the end of 4 days i'd be getting tired.
My trip to the Brass was 4 days made up of 9hours then 4.5hours then 9hours then 8hours on the road including stops and it was just nice.

[Jantar]

By my current count there are 20 Passes to get over and I don't know how far to travel but it must be close to 1500-2000km. Given some of them are on back roads I don't think less than 4 days would work - unless you want to ride for 8-10 hrs per day plus stops??

I'm in if it can be done in a single ride of up to 10 days. I think your estimate of 4 - 5 days may be a bit short: Its 1700 km just doing Haast, Lewis, Geddes, Burkes and Lindis. Then when you combine Mackenzie, Hakataramea and Danseys there will be a lot of to and fro across the same mountain ranges in opposite directions.

Lets put up a list of as many as we can think of, then we can work out distances and times.

[Jantar]

Some of the ones I can think of are:

Haast
Danseys
Lindis
McKenzie
Hakatarmea
Burke
Aurthers
Porters
Geddes
Lewis
Wards
Weka
Dashwood

And these are only ones with "Pass" in the name. If you add divide, saddle gap, col etc there are many more.

[far queue]

I'd be interested, but as Jantar says, I don't see this as a 4-5 day thing, plus I wouldn't be interested in going head down and arse up to get it done quickly. I'd rather take it a bit easier and see the views, plus I'm not that interested in too many of the sealed roads. The seal's just there to get me to the good stuff.

Just a thought, but perhaps you might want to split it up into a number of shorter trips for those who can't get longer periods off work and include a rally or two in the planning, such as Winchester in November, Hokitika in January, Vincent County in February I think, and March Hare in March.

Still it's 6 months away yet, so I'll just see wait and see what develops.

So, put me down as an interested but watching.

[Ruralman]

Good feedback , I think doing the trip in stages is possible but I would rather do the whole thing in one go and take another day or so - once you get halfway up the island you might as well carry on and come back a different way. For what its worth heres my list, roughly in order as I would rife them starting from Dunedin. There is only one bit of repeat road (unfortunately a boring bit) from Hamner Springs to Amberley. Here goes:
Danseys, hakataramea, McKenzie, Burkes, up to ChCh then Dyers and Gebbies on Banks Peninsula, Weka, Lewis, and up to Inungahua Junction and up the Buller Gorge (just 'cos its a great bike road), thru St Arnaud to Blenheim then Dashwood, Taylors and Redwood (all side by side almost), up the Molesworth Rd and over Wards pass, to Hamner and Jacks and Jollies passes, down to nearly rangiora and head inland to Okuku and lees passes, come out at Ashley Gorge, join the West Coast road over Porters and Arthurs, down the Coast to Haast, over the Lindis and either continue down the Waitaki valley and back to Dunedin that way or turn back and the top of the Lindis and head back towards Alexandra and celebrate at the first pub we come to!!! - 'cos I think thats all of them.
To answer one other question - "Saddles" don't count. Does anyone know of any passes missing???

[Jantar]

Good feedback , I think doing the trip in stages is possible but I would rather do the whole thing in one go and take another day or so - once you get halfway up the island you might as well carry on and come back a different way. For what its worth heres my list, roughly in order as I would rife them starting from Dunedin. There is only one bit of repeat road (unfortunately a boring bit) from Hamner Springs to Amberley. Here goes:
Danseys, hakataramea, McKenzie, Burkes, up to ChCh then Dyers and Gebbies on Banks Peninsula, Weka, Lewis, and up to Inungahua Junction and up the Buller Gorge (just 'cos its a great bike road), thru St Arnaud to Blenheim then Dashwood, Taylors and Redwood (all side by side almost), up the Molesworth Rd and over Wards pass, to Hamner and Jacks and Jollies passes, down to nearly rangiora and head inland to Okuku and lees passes, come out at Ashley Gorge, join the West Coast road over Porters and Arthurs, down the Coast to Haast, over the Lindis and either continue down the Waitaki valley and back to Dunedin that way or turn back and the top of the Lindis and head back towards Alexandra and celebrate at the first pub we come to!!! - 'cos I think thats all of them.
To answer one other question - "Saddles" don't count. Does anyone know of any passes missing???

Thompsons: Between Tarras and Omakau. And a good reason to to celebrate at Chatto Creek before heading back to Dunedin on the Dunstan Trail.

[Ruralman]

I've never seen that road before - on my map there's no mention of a pass, I see its called the "Rise and Shine road" and marked for 4WD so it should be OK if its dry, and yes the other end is very handy to Chatto Creek - sounds good to me.

[robertydog]

I would be in. Im heading down that way somewhere between the 19th Jan to4 -5th Feb

[Transalper]

Dont know exactly how serious you are about finding all Passes but heres some from a search for the word Pass on the Topo Maps.
Here's a couple of small ones, almost insignificant really...
There's Ahuriri Pass, about 7km out of Otematata toward Omarama.
Little Pass on the Haldon Rd. near Grays Hill.
Dover Pass near Lake Tekapo.
Evans Pass, Lyttelton to Sumner on the edge of Christchurch.
Flanagans Pass is a vehicle track doted line off the side of Lake Ohau on my map.

Saxton Pass is kinda off Wards Pass.
Weld Pass is one i think well proberbly do anyway on the way to Dashwood.
Wilmot Pass, im not convinced we could get there, might require a ferry acrass Lake Manapouri and proberbly requires a heap of land owner permission..
Pahau Pass, another track by Hanmer.
Others found are just more 4x4 stuff in places i think are not realistic to go to.

[skidMark]

at some point....most likelywhen summer hits cus i aint going down south when it's snowing....

me and gpx are going to go on a big adventure....starting in auckland and taking most likelt the coast roads the length of the country right down to bluff...will probably end up jump to stuart island to go as far down as i can....then head back up the west cost.....right up to the very tip of nz....then back down to auckland again....

will have to save alot though for accomadation....cus i know too many kiwibikers hate me to gve me a bed for the night and a garage to keep the bike in / maintain it along the way...so i'm gunna have to think up a plan.

[Ruralman]

Hi Robertydog - were you planning on doing this on an R1???

[Ruralman]

Thanks Transalper - maybe I'm not so sure I mean that - I think that the ones you have raised are relatively minor ones that don't appear on most maps (I Have actually seen the Sexton Pass on the Molesworth Rd in one map bbok tho)
So maybe we alter the rules a little and say all the Passes that appear in the Kiwimaps New Zeakand Travelllers Road Atlas (A bit like restricting things to one dictionary when playing scrabble - it cuts out all the shite words that some smartarse learns from looking up scrabble dictionaries or something).
The Kiwimaps Atlas's are the ones commonly available at most service stations.
Cheers
PS One reason for starting in Dunedin was so we can look at the forecast and decide whether to start or finish with the West Coast run.