Wairarapa Wanderings (warning - lots of photos)

**marks** · 28th November 2007, 18:59

My son Glen has this week off work so on Saturday afternoon we loaded the bikes onto the trailer and headed off to stay at a neat bach about 10km out of Ngawi at the bottom of the Wairarapa

Gunna was meeting us there and as his Scrambler was a bit heavy for what we had in mind to do we had brought the mighty zonk for him to ride. Notice that we fitted a customized refrigerated top box to carry our refreshments.

Sunday morning saw us up at 6.30-7.00 and by about 8.30 we headed off up the hill beside the Pinicles and headed towards Sutherlands Hut in the Aorangi Forest Park.

It was a great ride and as you climb quite high up the views were spectacular..

Once we started the descent towards Sutherlands Hut everything went a bit pear shaped. You go over a rise and are instantly on a long steep downhill composed of vast amounts of baseball sized rocks.

I was the first casualty when I high sided and got thrown completely off the track and about 3-4 metres down the bank. Luckily I landed in flax bushes and a brushy soft tree stopped my descent. It was so damned steep that we never stopped for photos as we were struggling to hold bikes upright and keep from sliding.

The track leveled out for a while before descending steeply again and here Glen barrel rolled his DT - twisting the forks and scratching and bending plenty of misc bits and pieces. Still too steep for photos

Gunna being Gunna rode down all of this on the worst bike (which had just blown a fork seal and dumped the entire contents onto the front disk and caliper) without any drama and eventually rode back up to find out what was keeping us girls.....

The last bit was easy so we limped into the Hut and collapsed...

After we recovered we spent about 45-60 minutes aligning forks and repairing various bits on Glens DT to make it properly ridable.

Gunna was keen to go back the way we came but Glen and I didn't want to face those two climbs again. Gunna rode my WR up to the top and back and said it was do-able but he is in an entirely different class than Glen or I and we weren't having a bar of it.

So we took the long way home - via Haurangi Rd and Martinbourough then back down to the coast. Can't have been very nice for Gunna riding the zonk 50km on the road at about 70km/hr.

It was a great ride and we were all pretty rooted by the time we got back.

more to come....

**janno** · 28th November 2007, 19:03

Aww, cool photos! most excellent! I've ridden the gee gees all through there and it was just paradise. Tis hard to stand up around those parts when the wind is gusting though.

More pics please!

**tri boy** · 28th November 2007, 20:03

Another fine write up mate. Hope to catch up with you soon.

**buggsubique** · 28th November 2007, 20:13

Jealous!! Love the pics, awesome weather for it too! Cheers for the post

**marks** · 28th November 2007, 20:25

Thanks all for the comments...

Gunna had to head off on Sunday night so Glen and I decided to kick back and have a lazy day on Monday.

The weather had been perfect on Sunday and Monday was perfect as well - not a cloud in the sky and no wind to speak of.

We went around to castle point in the car and did the touristy stuff..

250 odd steps to the top off this thing..

lovely scenery

Later on we went for a couple of rides near the bach up rocky river beds.

The first one had a steep rocky ravine that teed off it and so we decided to go and explore..

I decided have a go up the steep narrow part

It got so narrow that i had to turn around. The poor old zonk was getting the sh*t beaten out of it on all the rocks.

The little DT was handling this sort of riding surprisingly well - its a very versatile bike.

Later on we headed up another river bed

but we decided to give up when the rocks got a bit big

great sunset to end a great day..

still more to come..

**deanohit** · 28th November 2007, 20:27

Ha, go the mighty Zongshens!
Cool pics man, looked like a fun ride.

**XF650** · 29th November 2007, 16:36

Another pristine DT230 bites the dust.
At least they are getting used

**Transalper** · 29th November 2007, 17:14

Marks you do far too much awesome stuff, great photos again... I'll voice my annoyance at having to watch the whole lot reload again and again just to read the new posts in the thread as they appear. That's the same thing that eventually had me stop visiting ADV Rider, but then I think that conversation was done before.

I get out quite a bit here myself, but you seem to get the great rides and views every week.
Lucky bistard
Cheers
TA.

**merv** · 29th November 2007, 17:26

Yeah the photos thing as TA says, why don't you just load them as attachments so just the thumbnails show on the thread? This isn't ADVRider so we don't need to copy their style.

Great ride though.

Did you go around from the Cape on the bikes because I've been wondering a while about the status of that track to Whiterock? I understood DOC were meant to be doing a deal with the Dutchman but I'm not sure where that has got to and the first bit from the South is Maori land but they were usually bike friendly at least if you stayed on the track.

**marks** · 29th November 2007, 20:48

Originally Posted by deanohit

Ha, go the mighty Zongshens!

certainly is the bike that would not die.....

Originally Posted by XF650

At least they are getting used

used and abused

- the DT is definitely a keeper

Originally Posted by Transalper

you seem to get the great rides and views every week.

My boys hassle the crap out of me if we don't go out for a decent ride at least once a week (I only post pics of about every third ride so as not to bore people). Just got back an hour or so ago from a 3 hour explore of a forest at Himitangi Beach north of Foxton (about 85km form home)

Originally Posted by merv

Did you go around from the Cape on the bikes because I've been wondering a while about the status of that track to Whiterock? I understood DOC were meant to be doing a deal with the Dutchman but I'm not sure where that has got to and the first bit from the South is Maori land but they were usually bike friendly at least if you stayed on the track.

We didn't go any further than Castle Point so sorry - no further info to add.

**marks** · 29th November 2007, 21:03

On Tuesday we packed up and left the bach at about 10am.

We drove via some lovely back roads from Martinborough to Pongaroa because Glen wanted to ride the awesome Towai road again. Lovely day for travelling.

Got to Pongaroa about 2pm and had a late lunch and unloaded the bikes and got geared up.

I managed to get us lost so we ended up exploring some great gravel around Pongaroa and stopped at Waihi Falls for afternoon tea

we swapped bikes on and off - didn't matter what I rode - Glen blitzed me everytime....

Got back to Pongaroa about 6pm and loaded up the bikes and headed home via Woodville the Manawatu Gorge and Shannon. Got home about 9pm just as it got dark. A great and memorable trip.

**Balrog** · 29th November 2007, 22:26

Nice pics

Looked like a great ride.

( I think I remember huddling under that veranda on Zukins Makairo ride )

**Aslan** · 3rd December 2007, 20:51

those sons of your are going to have some great memories of time spent with you Mark - well done!

**marks** · 3rd December 2007, 21:29

Originally Posted by BusaJim

Nice pics

Looked like a great ride.( I think I remember huddling under that veranda on Zukins Makairo ride )

Thanks Jim..

- I would be keen to have a go at Mikairo if anyones interested

Originally Posted by Aslan

those sons of your are going to have some great memories of time spent with you Mark - well done!

Thanks Stephen - Certainly my younger son Tim (on the left) will have some interesting memories from Sunday.

We got halfway up Mount Thomas behind Otaki before he biffed his little 200 Shineray and broke the brake lever, bent the brake pedal around the engine, destroyed the handlebars, split the petrol tank and (I think) twisted the forks.

It was a long tow/push back to the car.....

Must have been a weekend for that sort of stuff. Glen and I took a guy who recently moved here from Germany up the Mungatooks on Saturday - he seemed an accomplished rider (he rode the evil 200 Zonk) but still went home scarred. His boss emailed me today and asked me what we did to him - said he now looks like the elephant man (I don't think he'll wear an open face helmet trail riding again).....

Looks like I'm on bike repairing duties this week