An EPIC ADVENTURE of two halves (and extra time)!

So, here we go!!! This is the start of a story I’m not sure I even want to write about. I’m still not really sure what I even think or feel about this latest adventure Steve and I have had, and it was an EPIC ADVENTURE……………that is for sure!!!

I happened to be listening to a podcast I was recommended by someone at work recently, by a guy named David Goggins. He’s an ex-Navy SEAL and is now into ultra-marathons, ultra-distance cycling and working out HARD, and has written a book called “Can’t Hurt Me – Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds”. Among other things, he preaches that growth and strength of mind only comes through adversity and that by going to dark places you can build a mind that is strong and resilient to all the challenges that the world throws at you, but you’ve got to get yourself well and truly into those dark places to get really strong – I hope I’ve done that description justice – Goggins talks in more colourful language with a lot more cussing than I’ve included!!!

So from this adventure of two halves, I’m going to claim that we must have strengthened ourselves, our minds and our resilience massively, because we had adversity and had to go to some really dark places to come through. And I’m guessing part of my healing and growing from this is to open up about it, and tell the story… so here goes…

It all started innocently enough, in fact the first half of this adventure was pretty darn good!!! The adventure came out of the blue too, which is always nice. Steve was heading away to Ecuador for a work trip, which was likely to be an intense and crazy time, so the proposition of a little mid-winter trip to get in the zone for this big work trip was put out there. It wasn’t hard to decide that it was a good concept, we just had to bat around a few ideas on how to make sure the trip was both epic, and safe given the winter impact on riding with possible ice and snow depending on where we headed.

The initial plan was for a pretty light trip, not pushing things too much and maybe just staying on the tarmac for the majority, if not the entire, adventure. We waited until the last couple of days to make a definitive plan so we could see what the weather was going to do. The weather gods (AKA various weather apps) suggested the rain was coming in from all directions, and the Friday night, which we intended to be away for, was likely to be raining pretty much everywhere. Further analysis suggested a window of good weather appeared to be up in the mountains on Saturday morning, east of the main divide and far enough north to miss the heavy rain expected along the south coast.

We certainly did not want to camp out in the rain on the Friday night though, so with a bit of fortuitous luck, on Friday morning we secured the last room available at Lake Ohau Lodge for the night, and were informed that the nachos (a house favourite) were only served until 6pm. Well well well, we had a destination and we had a target to arrive by – because who doesn’t like nachos!!! Arriving early would also avoid any winter night riding and allow us to make the most of their bar and spa. Ideal 🙂

Friday afternoon ended up being a pretty damn nice afternoon. So we met on the northern border of Dunedin and hit the highway. It was smooth leisurely riding as we’d decided not to push it, and didn’t want to cop any trouble today (nothing to do with the lapsed registrations we both had… ahem!) . So we just meandered on up State Highway 1, stopping in Palmerston to pump up my spongy tyres and do a spot of work, before heading on to that sneakily magical bit of back road between Maheno and Duntroon (go back to this blog where I wax lyrical about it!). Although strangely not quite so mind-blowingly marvellous in the opposite direction, but still pretty darn good!

We cruised on, enjoying the beautiful crisp winter air, the still blue hydro lakes in the Waitaki Valley and the glowing pure white snow caps in the distance. It was all round, pretty spectacular, until the sun started getting lower in the sky.

As you well know the sun sets in the west – well it does here in NZ, at least – and we were riding due west up the Waitaki. I can tell you that it was not easy, sunstrike was causing all sorts of issues. It was impossible to look directly up the road in our direction of travel, which is usually pretty ideal when you’re riding, so Steve very magnanimously let me take the lead. I worked out I could cock my head at a certain angle to remove a certain amount of glare, then by looking in the gap through the top of the visor between the top of pinlock and the helmet I could get a relatively glare free view, if only a few millimetres wide – so I battled on up the Waitaki with the most miniscule viewing range. It did highlight that my pinlock is pretty worn out – might be time for another (or a total helmet upgrade!!)

And Steve told me after that he was just focused on the strap of my backpack flapping about in the wind, as that was the easiest thing for him to actually see because of the movement. Lucky I stayed on the road, or he would’ve just blindly followed me into trouble!!

Anyway, it sounds super dodgy, but it wasn’t too bad, although the temperature was now dropping fairly quickly – gaining altitude as the sun sets in winter equals getting cold rapidly!!! So we stopped in Omarama for fuel, and raced on, appreciating the sun setting behind the mountains, if only for the better visibility, but certainly not for the now freezing temperatures.

We pushed on, thinking all afternoon we were never on target to get to the nachos on time. But on leaving Omarama we re-evaluated and thought we might have a shot. So we raced on – of course never breaking the speed limit… especially not once we left the main highway, flying past stunning views of Lake Ohau and the Ben Ohau mountain range in that magnificent evening light, past Lake Ohau Village that was in all states of renewal after the massive wild fires there last year and on to Lake Ohau Lodge, arriving in time to check-in, drop our bikes and bags outside our room, get changed out of our riding gear and……………………… order some nachos!

We’d made it – what an afternoon of cruisy riding it had been, being in no particular hurry for the majority of the day, just enjoying the cruise and the stunning scenery and arriving at our destination without being fully frozen and in time for a real treat.

I hear you asking – was it worth it? Were the nachos worth all that effort? The answer was a resounding YES!!!!! Washed down by a quiet drink or two 😉

The evening was then helped by all the loud school kids on their mid-winter breaks settling down to some dinner, which kept them quiet for at least a little while, allowing us to sneak into the spa while no-one else was there. And here we just relaxed the night away, sipping whisky, talking dross and loving the cool mountain air and fantastic starlit night sky. This peaceful tranquility was briefly disturbed by some youngsters before they headed off to bed. This adventure was turning into a chilled, leisurely, relaxing night away. Or was it…???

Day 2 dawned to some low mountain cloud and some showers. It’d also rained fairly heavily overnight. Great call on not camping!!! The forecast was for an improving day, so we decided the best approach was to chill out for a bit. The lodge bar turns into a daytime café of sorts, so after breakfast we chilled with a coffee, a game of pool and an admiration of the wonderful spot the lodge is nestled in – perched on the edge of the lake, mountains all around, and looking up into the looming Southern Alps. What an adventure we’re having, we’ve cruised leisurely somewhere, eaten like kings, sat in a spa and sipped whisky all night, and now been in no race to go anywhere in the morning. “Adventure?”, you ask. Just a different kind of adventure involving doing not much!!

The clouds started lifting and the sun started breaking through so we dragged ourselves off the couch and battled with what to do for the day. Steve commented he’d never been up to the end of the road past the lodge, and it was only about 10kms away so we thought that sounded like as a good a start as any, and off we went.

We quickly reached the end of the road where we were greeted with a sign. This was where the Hopkins Valley Track started and it was stated that “Council maintenance ends here. Road users do so at their own risk”. What does this say to you? I’m pretty sure you can also guess what is said to us!!! Of course, we turned around and headed back down the valley, because we were on a leisurely chillaxing adventure – not one of these crazy “what the hell are you doing?” type of adventures…

Wait, no we didn’t – what a mistake that would have been… or would it? Some might say this is where things started to go wrong, some might not say this – Steve and I included – hahaha!!! This track promised a lot, a 4WD track that was accessible in the middle of winter, after a night of rain – what might lie ahead could only be fun. And it was – it was miraculous, it was other-worldly, it was sensational – it was really unexpected. We didn’t have any specific plans, and we had fallen on our feet again – what a find this was!!!

We had about 15kms of real 4WD challenge – it was slick and slidey on top, there was mud and water everywhere, there was river crossings, there was challenge at every turn and the sun was shining and the views were incredible. As I said it was sensational 🙂

As hunger started to hinder our focus we arrived at a hut, turns out it is called Monument Hut and here the road stopped… or did it? Whatever it did, it was going to do it after some lunch. So we got the stove cranking and cooked up a mean feed of beans, followed by some creamed rice. Lunch of champions when you’re in the bush!!!

Monument Hut is quite the spot – tucked in on the edge of an encroaching native beech forest, that reaches out to touch the stunning mountain blue-green river while climbing towards a majestic skyline high above you, where you have to arch your neck to see the ridgeline high above. Meanwhile, the Hopkins River meanders down the wide yet rugged stony riverbed, snaking its way towards Lake Ohau and freedom, finding spots to turn tranquil deep emerald green mountain water into frothing and fighting rapids as it crashes over its selection of shining granite boulders craving to find the next tranquil spot.

As you might have noticed, I’ve tried to be a little artistic in my description of this spot – probably failing miserably, but at least giving it a good nudge!! An artistic description is the only way to try and give you all any idea of what this spot is like. MAGIC!!!!

Feeling like champions after our delicious lunch, we unloaded the bikes and jumped on wondering if there was any access further up the river valley. Searching high and low and up and down the river, we established that the only way upstream was by crossing the river, the shallowest spot was as wide as a football field with the current accelerating towards its next set of rapids. It was a no go zone. Good decision made, and given it was now after lunch we thought it might be time to actually start heading towards home as we still had a fair few hours of riding ahead of us.

Now arguably this is where things started to go awry – and if we were the blaming types we’d say for certain that this was where the problems started… or was it?

As we were repacking the bikes a couple of 4WDs turned up, and out hopped a couple of families, small kids in tow, including a baby that appeared to be less than a couple of months old. Good effort team!!! We had a lovely chat with them as they set up their portable barbie and cranked out a few sausies. Loving your work team!!!!

They asked us what our plans were and we said we were heading back to Dunedin, and one of the blokes suggested Omarama Saddle might be worth a look. Now if you’re a long time reader, you’d probably remember our Otematata & Omarama trip from March 2020 where we tackled the West Branch of the Manuherikia River which included a mild 25-ish river crossings – so we said we’d been there and it’d be no good with all those river crossings in the middle of winter. But he persisted and suggested the East Branch would be sweet, “probably” no snow on top and there was only a handful of river crossings and they would not be an issue even mid-winter. We delved further and he seemed pretty convinced it’d be worth a nudge. Now, really loving your work team… or were we????

So with fresh energy aplenty after a sweet lunch in a sensationally stunning spot we started heading for home. First challenge was to re-negotiate the slick, muddy, boggy, mudslide back down to the bottom of Hopkins River Valley – and it was as much fun as on the way up. Some might say this was an epic little unplanned side trip and quite the first half to a really amazing adventure, we might say this was just the first course… or was it just the appetiser?

Hopkins River Valley done, Lake Ohau done, Lake Ohau Village done, sweet roads back to Omarama done, back roads to the start of the Omarama Saddle tracks done… and the whistle for the second half of this adventure can be heard blowing in the distance.

There is a big paddock at the end of Broken Hut Road after you leave the main road just outside Omarama; here you can go right around the end of the spur, where you follow Omarama Stream up the valley before ascending to the top of the real Omarama Saddle and drop down into the Manuherikia River West Branch, which is the route we travelled on our O.O.M.G adventure. Or you can take the left track and head straight up the spur which leads you over another “Omarama Saddle” and down into the Manuherikia River East Branch which was our intended route this time around.

There were gates at the other end of this big paddock that needed to be opened to progress on either route, but they both had chains and padlocks on them, ruh roh!!!!!

Some might say this was where it all started to go terribly wrong… but it probably wasn’t, although it could have been. But it was definitely the first moment where we had an option to turn around – fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, this was not in our thinking and if it was we probably wouldn’t have listened to ourselves anyway!!!

Next to the gate with the padlock was a small pedestrian sized gate, and a sign saying the track was still open for walkers and people riding horses. It was also plenty wide enough for a motorbike to fit through. We were riding horse power weren’t we, so surely it was ok. We discussed it for a bit, one worry being that we might make it all the way through and come across a padlocked gate at the other end and have to come all the way back again. But we decided this was unlikely, if you could get through at this end on a motorbike, surely you could get through at the other end. SURELY!!!!

So we decided to head on through the pedestrian gate, immediately coming across an issue as the gate was a good metre or two below the road heading up the spur and the grass/mud was so slick that we could not get enough speed/grip to get back onto the road, and it was an awkward side camber which made it even more tricky – some pushing later we were on the road and heading up to saddle #2. We rose quickly on a rugged, rutted, rocky 4WD track and soon had amazing views back over the Omarama Basin and into the Southern Alps – it was spectacular in the late afternoon sun. And then we came across some small drifts of snow – remember the 4WD drive dude – “probably” no snow on top – right!!!! There was definitely going to be a little bit of snow up top.

The next phase was when the snow drifts started covering good portions of the track but it was soft and wet after being in the sun all day and we scooted over without any issues… on we go. Eventually we reached a point where the road started flattening out, it felt like we were very near the top, except in front of us was… an exceptionally long snow drift – there was only one thing to do, open the tap and give it a nudge. And I was down so fast I hardly knew it’d happened – who knew that snow and ice was so slippery!!! Thanks Steve for having the video on while this was happening 🙂

The next problem presented itself straight away: there was slight incline right through this snow drift, but we made it work, pushing, giving it some, pushing some more and we got my bike to the top. Rinse and repeat, Steve’s bike was through the first big snow drift too. Although it was certainly energy sapping pushing a motorbike through a snowdrift (if only we knew what was coming next…!).

Now we could meander to the saddle itself, a flat slightly snowy ride another couple of hundred metres down the track. I reached it after Steve and his bike, the sun, the colours, the Manuherikia River East Branch reaching out towards St Bathans – it was bloody spectacular!

Now the downhill started and it was on the shady side of the ridge for the afternoon sun… and it appeared like there was a “bit” more snow on this side. To be honest, there was heaps more snow on this side, it was in shade and it looked rather sketchy. We talked about it and thought that with it being downhill and the fact the snow only started a few metres in altitude from the summit on the side we’d just come up that it’d be ok pretty quickly. There might be a few drifts up the top here, but pretty soon it’d be fine… probably around the next little spur…

So we started downwards, in snow, and some might say this is where we went wrong, and they’d probably be right!!! This was an experience neither of us had ever had before – so here we were riding our motorbikes in snow, and without specific tyres for it either!!! We took it gently and it all seemed ok, we could maintain control and make progress fairly easily, but we did stop about 200m down and discuss again whether we should continue, or whether we should turn back. We determined this was our last opportunity, any further down and it would be too much work to get back to the top. We decided to push on… surely it’d be fine pretty soon… probably around the next little spur…

We pressed forwards, determined to make the most of this wonderfully unique experience. We were making progress but some of the drifts were getting deeper and softer, meaning there were portions we could not ride through. Pushing in earnest commenced but the camber of the road was difficult and sliding us towards to the massively steep drop-off into the valley far below. We decided maybe trying the line on the other side of the track might work better, there was kind of a ditch and it looked like the snow was a bit less in there (and there was no massive drop-off!!). We pushed over and all of a sudden it was easy, making great progress… for a hundred metres or so before hitting an even bigger drift. We were stuck!!!

Pushing/dragging and any other means necessary commenced to get the bikes moving again. Now we had two of us with one bike, one controlling the handle bars and the throttle while walking alongside and the other pushing from the rear, getting a face full of snow. This was becoming rather hard work, we were putting in a massive amount of effort to make progress at times, and we were both quickly becoming sweaty and tired – I had sweat literally dripping from my helmet when I took it off. It’s also worth remembering that we had two bikes so every big effort was on rinse and repeat, including a sapping snow walk back up the track to the second bike. Every now and again one of us would crash in the snow, out of breath and in need of a quick break, but we battled on, we had no choice, going back was now not an option. Surely it’d be easier pretty soon… probably around the next little spur…

This is a great time to remember why we get out and go on these adventures… again, it’s not always about the wonderful scenery and dreamy riding roads, it’s not all about the destination and the feeling of pride and success at achieving something cool – sometimes it’s about the adversity that you come across – and sometimes adversity smacks you in the face – and today it felt like we were getting clubbed with adversity, while having no ability to defend ourselves. Remember the words I started with “growth and strength of mind only comes through adversity and that by going to dark places you can build a mind that is strong and resilient to all the things that the world throws at you, but you’ve got to get yourself into those dark places to get really strong”. We were heading for dark places now, we had adversity in ample measures, we were sapping our strength and energy and we had no way of turning back. We just had to knuckle down, work as a team and push through.

So, here we were, coming down Omarama Saddle in the snow, on our motorbikes, battling away, pushing, dragging, riding and making progress. Surely it’d be fine pretty soon… probably around the next little spur… and finally around the next little spur the track got a bit steeper, meaning we were able to do more riding and less pushing. One final drift stopped Steve, we pushed him through and out and he was off. WE HAD DONE IT!!!

Now we just had to ride on through and out… or did we? This is when this last drift got me, my balance went ever so slightly the wrong way, I went to put a foot down… nothing – I hate it when you need to get a foot down quick and there is no ground there to put you foot on, just a hole. I had no energy left to try and stay upright so I just collapsed with my bike in the snow.

Steve was well down the hill and out of sight, our bikes are fairly heavy and I was totally devoid of energy. I quickly understood all of this and used the shot of adrenaline it gave me to right my bike. Ok, not too bad, this will be fine!! Mmmmmmmm, now she doesn’t start, she’s flooded?!? Bugger!!! Ok, I’m on a downhill slope, I’ll just free-wheel for a bit, let the engine clear and restart her….

Free-wheeling a motorbike down a snowy icy slope, with no engine braking is not an ideal situation!! Sketchily slipping and sliding I made my way very slowly down to where Steve waited patiently. He could see me and I could see him thinking “WTF?!?”. On finally reaching him I explained the tip over, the righting of the bike, the flooding, the free-wheeling. I tried her again, still no go – still very flooded. Mmmmmmmmmmm? Oh well, we’ll go a bit further and try again. More free-wheeling, at least we were now almost out of the snow completely, woooohoooo!!!

I tried a couple of roll starts, still no go. We got to the bottom of the steepest section and stopped to reassess. I knew my battery was starting to get low, I needed to get her started, so I tried one more time, and low and behold she started. WOOHOO!!! But wait…

On hindsight, this was actually not the result we needed. We needed her to not start which would have caused us to stop and think about what was actually causing this prolonged flooding. Later on, we knew exactly why she wouldn’t start, she had fuel in the airbox and couldn’t get enough air in, but why we didn’t think of that right now we cannot tell you – probably just pure exhaustion. Steve tells me later that he did vaguely consider fuel in the airbox, but just didn’t mention it. Bugger!!!

Anyway back to the moment, she was going so I wasn’t messing around – a good little run now would clear her out for sure. So I blatted off ahead of Steve, rode for 10-15 minutes thinking she’d be well cleared, and stopped… she stalled again… and the battery was not in good shape either. I tired to fire her up again, but she was done. Still flooded AND no battery now – OH SHITE!!!!!!!

We accepted pretty quick that the only answer was for Steve to tow me out. We also seemed to work out pretty quick once the battery had died that the problem was fuel in the airbox, so we knew we needed to drain the fuel and get me tow started and then it’d be fine. So we weren’t worried about the problem too much knowing we had the solution; we just had to tow me down this muddy, rough, rutted 4WD drive track for maybe 15-20km negotiating 4-5 rivers crossings, get to a gravel road, drain my airbox, tow start me and we’d be on our way home. Sounds easy right? Well it wasn’t and this is where adventure extra-time started. It got tough, outrageously tough!!

We’ve since been told about a mindset you get into where you only see one outcome, and thus don’t think of how else to deal with the situation – scuba divers have a name for it: perceptual narrowing. This is what happened to us, we were totally knackered from the exertion of getting the bikes through the snow, and our minds were not thinking clearly and able to put the pieces together in the correct order. What we should have thought about is maybe draining it there and then and seeing if we could tow start me sooner even though it was rough (or preferably even earlier before my battery had died). Looking back on it, it is incredibly frustrating to see how the pieces should have come together, and it wasn’t that complex to solve, and then we’d never have been faced with the massive challenge we were faced with.

So here’s the situation: we were still a long way from a main road, it was now dark and getting cold, and I had a bike that was going nowhere on its own. We have 15-20km of towing to do on a muddy, rough, rutted 4WD drive track with 4-5 river crossings. Not good at all! On top of that I’d called my partner, Susan, while in Omarama saying “just one little pass to go over and we’ll be home about 7pm”. It was now coming up to 7pm and we were still a long way from cell phone signal. The miraculous part is that even though we were staring this daunting challenge in the face, we just accepted our fate, knew we had a means to get ourselves through and out, and that we weren’t too worried about it.

Well that might be an exaggeration, I’d say maybe we were a little worried, but maybe a better thing to say is that we weren’t overwhelmed by it and we trusted ourselves to extricate us from this situation. I certainly did have a moment of frustration when my battery died and let a few choice swear words fly before focusing what we had to do to get is done. Now, if you’ve ever towed a motorbike with another motorbike, you’ll know it’s not the easiest job in the world – add muddy, rough, rutted tracks at a really slow speed and it becomes a nightmare. And that’s what we’d just entered, an ADVENTURE NIGHTMARE!!!

The next few hours really became a bit of a blur, we fought and struggled our way forwards, at times feeling like each turn of the wheel was a Herculean effort. We fought through mud, ruts, puddles, road ridges, bumps and got a whole bunch of bruises. So I’m getting dragged and jerked along with no ability to control my own speed and no headlight to even see what’s in front of my front wheel, so I’m “riding” by feel. And Steve is trying his hardest to maintain a steady strain on the tow rope, which is proving exceptionally difficult as he has to negotiate all of the obstacles he encounters while only having the vision his Dr650’s dim headlight offers him. Countless times the jerk on the rope is at the wrong moment and I have to correct my bike quickly, getting a foot down or manoeuvring my weight quickly; many times I’m too slow and I go over. It is so energy sapping, it’s a wonder where we find the strength to fight on.

David Goggins talks in the same podcast I referred to about the amount of physical and mental reserves that the human body has, it’s a huge amount more than most people actually realise. He say’s the biggest tragedy of humankind is the untapped potential within people. I can tell you that we were tapping physical and mental reserves well beyond anything we’d ever done before. If you’re an avid reader you know we’ve been out there, we’ve had a few challenges and faced a bit of adversity – but we’ve NEVER faced anything like this.

One time as we come out of a stream I get jerked the wrong way, and there’s no ground there to get a foot down, and I’m down, my bike coming over on top of me, trapping my leg under it – I instantly go limp to avoid any tension in my body against the fall of the bike and it settles on me, no damage done – WHEW!!!! Although I have a moment where I’m pretty worried I might be injured and scream at Steve to get the bike off me. One of many moments where the edge seems near, only for me to breath, gather myself and go again.

David Goggins also talks about the fact that you need to be strong because life will keep throwing challenges at you, he says “the thing people don’t get, is there is no end, people are waiting for this miraculous moment in their life where the struggles end, but THERE IS NO END!!! You must just keep getting up to face the next challenge!!”. This is a great mantra for this challenge in front of us, and that’s all we could keep doing, stand up, face the next challenge and deal with it as it came and walloped us in the face.

It’s getting colder and progress is slow, the energy is draining from our bodies, but at no moment do we give up. We stay in the moment and talk practically and pragmatically about options as they arise. We see from our topo map that there is a hut near the road, we don’t see it, but we talk about whether we should camp down for the night, regain some energy and try again in the morning. We decide it’s better to push on, we believe we have the drive and energy to keep going, and as it’s a cold night staying still is likely more risky than keeping on moving.

At another moment we stop, and I get off my bike and just collapse on the ground. Steve in his empathetic caring manner, giggles a bit, gets out his phone and takes a photo of me. We can still laugh about our situation, we know we’re struggling but we can still see the hilarity of the moment, or is it the start of absurdity? A friend later asked us how we interacted with each other through these darkest moments, and with absolute honesty (and a bit of pride) we said we did not snap at each other once. I did admit I was close at one point, but quickly remembered that there’s no fault here, only a process to battle through to get ourselves home. I can admit I did have a couple of moments, one in particular where I lost it a little bit, but not at Steve – just at the absurdity of the situation.

We complete some river crossing, nothing too dramatic, although doing so results in icy cold mountain water running into our boots. Not comfortable, but just another challenge to overcome. We know there is one final river crossing to come where the West Branch meets the East Branch, and it’s the river running out of the West Branch that we have to cross, so it could be deep. When we reach it, we stop and stare. It is at least 20 metres across and running at a reasonable rate. What choice do we have? We talk it through and decide the best option is to unhook the tow rope and push each bike through. No point in risking Steve’s bike going down in the river and causing a more dramatic issue. At this stage we’re too tired to take off our boots or riding jeans, so just push the bikes through fully clothed. Just another challenge to overcome!!!

As we leave the river we come up to the meeting of the two branch tracks and a fence, and a gate, a chain and a padlock. Oh no, oh no, oh no!!!!!! This is NOT good. We look at the hinges, also chained and padlocked, so no chance of lifting the gate off its hinges. We look up and down the fence line, the fence is in reasonable nick, no other gaps to get through or over. So we go back to the padlock, what can we do? Well, for one, we could have actually checked out the chain and padlock properly, because the chain isn’t actually padlocked through the gate so all we have to do is pull the chain out and the gate opens. We push the gate open, again laughing at the absurdity of it all.

Now our memory of our previous trip down here is that the road gets a bit better once the two branches join together, in short our memories are crap. The road does not improve at all so we fight on, we estimate another 8-9kms to go.

Another problem is that if you choose a rut, you essentially choose your fate and must take what comes – sometimes it gets really deep and you legs are up around your ears, sometimes it’s gets really slick on the sides and you can go down easily, sometimes it leads to a deep puddle of muddy water, and one time it led us to a mud bog. To this point I’d surprisingly stayed pretty clean even though I was mostly directly behind Steve’s, often spinning, back wheel. Not now, I got absolutely covered in thick gooey gross mud. I couldn’t see out of my visor it was so thick. We stopped and it was everywhere and I screamed out a few choice words. What choice did we have? I cleaned myself down as best I could and we fought on.

We ticked through 8 more kilometres, and then through 9kms. No sign of the gate and the gravel road we were now craving with all of our being. Come on… the end must be near… THERE IT WAS, the relief was epic! We hooted and gaffawed. WE’D DONE IT!! We’d towed me for about 20kms through some of the toughest terrain you could tow a bike, and we’d made it. We now just had to work through the solution we’d perceptually narrowed ourselves into earlier and we’d be on our way. But first we had cell signal so we called home, it was late, maybe 10.30pm, but we had to call to let them know we were ok. There was relief at the other end of the phone too, much like our relief. Things were going to be ok.

So we emptied a ton of fuel out of my airbox, adding a little bit of cursing for good measure about why we hadn’t thought about this sooner. And we headed off on what we thought was the quickest route to Ranfurly, where there was fuel, much needed fuel as Steve knew he was running low; we hoped I had plenty given my lack of engine activity over the preceding few hours and we could always siphon across if needed. We headed on down the gravel road for 500m with a couple of attempted tow starts, one of which my bike fired dramatically and lurched forwards but didn’t quite take, and found ourselves at a washout, oh crap!! We gotta turn around and go the longer way to Ranfurly, and thus fuel will be even more of a worry. One more jerk on the tow rope while we’re turning at the wrong angle sends me toppling over, just for good measure and to rub my face it in all one last time!!!

On the way back to where we’d joined the gravel road my bikes fires and the engine bursts into life, more relief courses through me!!!! I was good, we unhooked the tow ropes and I hit the road, under my own steam and with control over my throttle, for the first time in an eternity. It felt good, so so good, as we flew down the back roads, a couple of times being careful to avoid roaming cattle – flying headlong into a cow would be no way to finish this trip after overcoming all we had done!!!! The roads improved and we flew on, stopping once to check everything was hunky dory. I stalled my bike and restarted her, she was fine, the battery recharged sufficiently and we were on our way. Surely no more problems from here… surely!!!!!

We stopped briefly at the turnoff to St Bathans, Steve rolls up beside me looking a little sheepish. “I’ve just gone onto reserve” he says – oh dear, this could be a problem. There’s no gas in St Bathans that we know of, Ranfurly is the closest town at something around 40km, that’s a lot on a DR’s reserve tank. What choice do we have? We push on hoping Steve might roll into the petrol station on his last fumes. Unfortunately he doesn’t, he rolls to a stop 2kms short of the petrol station… and I’d hit reserve about 20kms prior as well. Again, for the unknownth time this evening we laugh at the absurdity of the situation and get out the tow ropes again. This time the favour goes the other way – maybe this evens out the towing for the day… or maybe not!!!!

We roll into the petrol station, a 24hr self-serve place and fill up. It’s a mighty relief to know that we’ve now taken this potential problem off our plates – but it is now pushing midnight and we’re in Ranfurly, which is in the middle of “The Pigroot” – though there is no definitive explanation for this name, it may be due to the fact local wild pigs were so unafraid of humans that they willing approach them without fear – so another way to describe this is that it’s in the absolute middle of nowhere!!!

Now, we fire up the bikes ready to sort out this situation and find a place to sleep – well, actually I fire mine up and Steve tries and then swears a bit. His battery has now run flat. Absurdity!!!! We hadn’t even taken the tow ropes off yet, so just re-hook these up and get Steve’s bike firing after a tow start. Again, we leave tow ropes attached – who knows what could go wrong next!!!! And then we rocket into town, hoping the famous Ranfurly pub is still open and has a room we can crash in. We are absolutely knackered and need a break after this complete and utter debacle of an afternoon/evening.

We see lights on, but no patrons in the bar. We spot the two bartenders closing up for the night, and bash on the door. No response – there is music still blaring inside. We try again, still no response. The music goes off, the lights go off and they leave the bar. We know the only other way out of this old hotel is via the front door, which we’d already found open earlier. We run around there and catch the two lads as they wander out. We explain the situation and ask if they can help us out with a room for the night. It is late, they are tired and unfortunately for us they are disinclined to help. They lamely state that the alarm is set and they don’t know the code now they’ve set it so there is no way to sort us out a room – thanks lads, huge help!!!

In their lame attempt to offer assistance they suggest a local motel which we’d just passed and the owners had clearly shut up for the night, or the local campground which has some cabins in it. They suggested it’d be fine just to wake up the campground owner – “he’d be fine with it” they say. Thanks lads, not sure of this guidance to be honest!!!

We ride around to the campground and it too, is clearly shut up for the night. We wander around a bit, wondering what to do. Steve has a marvelous idea that maybe a cabin is unlocked and empty and we can crash in it and sort it out with the owner in the morning. He wanders off, finds a sliding door open and pops his head around the curtain. He then quickly and quietly closes the door and suggests we should wander off in another direction. 30 seconds later a head pops out from around the curtain, looks around a bit and then heads off to the bathroom. Oooooops, that cabin was occupied!!!!

We then do find a cabin that is unlocked and unoccupied, this time we can see through the windows as the curtains are open. We look inside, realise there is no bedding and we don’t have sleeping bags and think that trying to sleep on a cold winter’s night without anything to keep us warm is not a great idea. The only option left is to jump on the bikes and ride home. We decide that this is the best decision as we’ll then be able to be warm and dry and start the recovery process, so we eat all the snacks we have left, gee each other up to boost the adrenaline one last time and hit the road.

Steve travels home via Middlemarch to Mosgiel while I head out to Palmerston on the coast and south to Dunedin and home. An hour and a bit later we both open our front doors, it’s after 2am, at this point in time we can’t really comprehend what chaos we’ve been through but we text each other to confirm safe arrivals, say hello to our worried spouses, shower to try and wash off some of this debacle and literally crash into bed.

This adventure has bought many feelings to the surface: Were we really motorbike adventurers or just wannabes going beyond our limits? Why do we feel like we have imposter syndrome after this debacle? Did our limited mechanical knowledge put us into a dangerous position? Were the risks associated with this type of adventuring really what we wanted to expose ourselves to? Have we pushed ourselves too far? Were we really in control of making good decisions? And did we even want to address these questions? How could we deal with these feelings and what did our future adventuring selves look like? Was the answer to hide away in a hole and pretend like this whole thing had never happened?

The answer to this final question is YES, just for a little while at least anyway – this is also why’s it’s taken a long time to sit down and write this story.

It is clear to see that we were outrageously challenged by this adventure, and probably fair to say that we might be a bit scarred by it too. We absolutely pushed ourselves to our limits, and beyond, or maybe another way of saying this is that we pushed ourselves to limits that maybe we didn’t know we even had. But at no point did we feel like we were in significant danger or feel like we were weren’t in control of the decisions we were making. Once we got ourselves into the predicament we found ourselves in, we knew what we needed to do, we just needed to execute it. Sure it would be fair to say that had we not suffered from perceptual narrowing that we might of not had to contend with THAT NIGHTMARE period, but we did and we dealt with it.

There sure are some learnings we can take from this trip too, like always remember to check the airbox for fuel if my bike goes over on its right side and then won’t start! Or that carrying some jumper leads might be a good idea. But I think the biggest one is that if you know you’re tired, to really take time to assess the situation to ensure you haven’t missed something obvious. We saw a solution but it just wasn’t the simplest solution – although it did give us a bloody good story to tell – hahaha!!!!!

Sometimes it’s also good to remember that time and reflection is a wonderful thing and a vitally important part of the growing process; and I’m happy to announce that the process of telling this story to you all has been restorative and healing for me. I hope Steve gets the same from reading this.

Hope you enjoyed the story, thanks for reading 🙂