Sunday, January 25, 2009

Reintroducing Ourselves to the Three Sisters

Today, Brett convinced us to recce a proposed new track for the Blue Mountain Blast as our old one has been wrecked by those bloody foresters! He had found a new way to get from Valley Station to King Rd and it only took hime 12 minutes on his 400cc motor bike!

So the Boss, Hedley, Roger, Karl and Kate and I headed off from Hanaia and met up with Ross and Mike at Waiaua where Hedley put a new chain (not bought from Hickey's!) on Grant's bike who then drove to Young's where we picked him and Bruno up. At the skid we met Louise who joined us and Brett who was on his 70cc motor bike.

It was fairly uneventful to Valley Station Rd (though it is always a tougher and longer climb than I remember each time) and we charged down the Dip, turned off, went the wrong way, backtracked and then ended up walking most of the way up some steep ridge to King Rd which only took Brett 12 minutes on his 400cc motor bike previously! This photo and others in the album (click here) show the terrain he took us over.

It was great to reach King Rd and hurtle down, full of anticipation and trepidation. towards the waiting, and particularly grumpy, Three Sisters. They did not disappoint and looked as if they had a hard time and wanted to take it out on us. Grant was a Three Sister's virgin and hurtled himself down and, despite a few skid outs and minor falls, conquered them well. We all had minor incidents but to impress were Roger, Hedley, Ross, Kate and Louise who rode quite a bit. I stayed sort of attached to my pedals, seat (by way of stomach) and handlebars for most of it. but Grant struggled to call it riding.

From there it was a great charge up the Mangakirikiri and it's many creek crossings with a beautiful swim in one deep pool to cool off.

When we met Vaughan and his son at the skid he told Mike ( who had turned up at cycling 2 weeks previous without a helmet) that he had locked his car for him at Waiaua as Mike had left it open!

We got back to Hanaia for coffee and baking supplied by Hedley and then a few of us headed to the Harbour Swim to be kayak safety people.

Hell, we have a lot of adventures!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you mention it only took Brett 12minutes to do th track on his 400cc motorbike??

Anonymous said...

check your camera quality setting next time Maurie, can hardly see the photos man!!