So if we asked you “when is the ideal time to go riding on the dirt tracks of the Maniototo?” we’re guessing, unless you’re a little bit crazy, you wouldn’t say “the day after the biggest rains of the year”. Well, that’s pretty much what Steve and I decided to do. The timing was preset, booked in with the families and the desire to do something before Christmas with an already full calendar. The destination was pretty certain because of our lack of ability to complete the plan of heading through the Manorburn area in Central Otago back in September, so we unknowingly and unwittingly set out on an adventure that was not what we expected and we had some challenges along the way but damn we had so much FUN and ADVENTURE!!!
I was heading off for our family holiday on the Sunday before Christmas so we headed off on the Friday afternoon as soon as we could get away from work on a one night adventure. A hopeful 1pm leaving time turned into a 4pm leaving time before you knew it – if you didn’t know this is fairly standard for Steve and I’m pretty used to waiting patiently now. So we were off on the road in a brisk cold southerly with showers still intermittently rolling through. We raced up to Clark’s Junction and onto Old Dunstan Road which heads up into that typical brown barren beautiful Central Otago landscape. Old Dunstan Road heads across Central Otago from Clarks Junction through to Alexandra cutting across some fantastic but isolated country, it is a great part of New Zealand.
Challenge 1 – if felt so good to be on the road and we were feeling the vibe. In the groove we turned left at Clarks Junction and cruised along what we knew to be the last bit of tarmac for a fair distance, or so we thought. Just 5 minutes onto Old Dunstan Road we came over the crest of a rise and dropped down into a river valley, damn there is a lot of water in that valley!! We’ll be fine and we could see the gravel rising up the other side of the valley, beckoning us. As we hit the bottom of valley we let out a little curse, the road dipped down to a bridge but it was all underwater, we’re talking maybe close to 100m of road covered in water and some of it flowing at a reasonable rate. It was called Deep Stream, hmmmm, not a good sign. We thought this was bad, if only we’d known what we were going to face over the next 24 hours then we’d have realised this was a piece of cake!!
I waded out to see how deep it was, and at knee deep with the amount of current decided to wade no further. The map revealed another option, a loop back onto the main road and down the next side road, and we’d be on the other side of Deep Stream. Done!!! So 15 minutes later, after having to skip through a farmyard (after the local farmer’s approval) because the other road was also underwater, we were on the other side of the bridge. Of course we could have lied and told you we just braved the river, I mean the photos certainly suggest that’s what we did!!
Challenge 2 – full of happiness at passing our first challenge we headed off up onto the next level of the plateau. Not long later we saw Loganburn stretch out to our left and a little dirt track heading off down towards it. A glance and a nod was all that was needed to see where it led. It got slippery quickly and then rutted with water channels, then slippery and rutted and full of mud and water. We didn’t consider turning back, well not for more than a second at least!! We spied a route through the tussock that got us to a beach by the Burn and off we went, except whoopsy, it was full of Sphagnum moss. Sphagnum holds a huge amount of water and although it might look nice on top, it’s just like a sponge – not ideal to ride a bike over. So some energy sapping pushing and splashing later we hit the beach and the sun shone down on us for a second in between the dark rain clouds. What a spot! After a snack, we looked around and found a much better route back out, away from the Sphagnum, and after only one small amount of pushing we were on our way further up Old Dunstan Road.
Challenge 3 – on we headed through the stunning evening light, next stop was at some high country huts for a snack and a drink. What the hell is that?? Is that an old bus?? What the hell is that doing up here in the middle of nowhere?? Why is it not even close to the road?? Should we go and check it out?? Enough said, next adventure please!! Steve had spotted a track back up the road so off we went, and this one was so much more slippery than the other track. Jeez, it was slippery, and rutted – Steve went down in a heap, I rode past with a grin on my face and 30 metres later I was on my side too!! Rutted roads that are super slippery can send you down in the blink of an eye, if you get onto the side of the rut you can get kicked over so fast, which we’d both learned once but this wouldn’t be the last lesson we’d have about ruts and mud!!
We picked ourselves up and dusted ourselves down and on to the bus we headed. It was an old Dunedin City Transport trolley bus, these hadn’t been around since the 70s. It was gutted, full of shotgun pellets and etched graffiti and quite a sight to behold. How the hell did someone get this up here?? It seemed crazy but kind of wonderful, and made for some fantastic photos and laughs. We enjoyed the crazy southern juxtaposition and wished we had our tents with us to enjoy such a beautiful spot with the bus and the burn, but in our wisdom had decided that it was too wet for tents and didn’t bring them.
Challenge 4 – on we headed down the muddy slippery beautiful Old Dunstan Road. Whoever was in the lead picked the best line they could, dodging the puddles and ruts in the road – well they tried and sometimes failed. Steve commented at one point as we took a quick break that he’d been watching me ride along in front and everything was looking good and then out of nowhere my back wheel was sliding all over the place, and he was thinking REALLY?!? How is he sliding around on that flat bit of road? Well that’s about how slippery it was folks, it was like an ice rink at times but we managed our way through with some particularly hairy moments, but nothing so dramatic as to dent out pride and make us muddy!! The light was fading and we pushed on, aware that we were quite a way from anywhere and still needed to find a place to sleep for the night.
Challenge 5 – there is not a lot of towns along Old Dunstan Road, in fact, there’s none. It wasn’t like we were just going to come across a backpackers or B&B either out here in the upper valley of the Taieri River, not when the local place is called The Styx (well actually Paerau, but The Styx is it’s colloquial name). As the crow flies, Middlemarch is the closest town, but geography meant that heading out to Patearoa or Ranfurly was the most likely to serve up what we wanted – dinner, beer and a bed! So when we came out to the top of the valley, we stopped to admire the view but aware we had to race all the way down the valley in the dying light. About 9pm we arrived in Ranfurly and found the local hotel still serving dinner and beer. Score, we ordered the first two components of our desires, and then searched for a bed, which we found minutes later at the Old Post Office Backpackers across the road. Everything had fallen in to place and there was a party in the bar of the pub as well – in fact it was the annual Ranfurly Hotel Christmas party – good timing. So we joined in, although the fatigue of the afternoon hit us fairly quickly. We did get to have a good laugh at the local banter, and with the locals who were clearly enjoying themselves!! After a few quiet whiskys back at the backpackers we hit the sack, ready for another day of fun!
Challenge 6 – day two arose to a big plan, but first we had a good old yarn with the backpackers owner. He was a great local guy, had plenty of yarns and an old 80s Yamaha he’d been doing up after his son had neglected it. And then he’d ridden it down to the Burt Munro Challenge rally in Invercargill. It was a sparkling little beauty and he was clearly proud of his work. After some breakfast at the Four Square cafe we hit the road, hoping to head up to Serpentine Church, back around Poolburn, over to Manorburn, down to Lake Onslow and then find our way out to a road that would get us back to Dunedin so I could go on my Christmas holiday. In true, Grit and Sprit style, we didn’t come close to achieving what we wanted to.
After a leisurely morning on gravel roads back up the valley through Gimmerburn and Puketoi, we passed by the next part of Old Dunstan Road looking for Serpentine Road, it appeared pretty obvious on Google Maps but in real life it was some slightly worn track across a grass paddock, but it was a stunning area – Central Otago schist mixed with green green grass and brown brown tussock. Immediately on finding Serpentine Road we knew that this could get interesting, the road was so intensely water rutted, not just from the most recent rain and it wasn’t a road that had had any work for some time. And it rose higher onto the plateau again. We were having a lot of fun getting wet and muddy and scaling rocks and rutted hills. We got to the next level of the plateau after a couple of hairy inclines balancing on the edges of big ruts and ran into some farmers driving their sheep across the plateau, of course we would run into some guys up here in the middle of nowhere. They were great and stopped for a yarn, and filled us in on what we could achieve of our plan. There was no way back down from Manorburn, the farmer over there was “a bastard” (their words, not ours!!!) and locked all his gates! They did give us hope saying that Serpentine Church was “just over there”, next goal lunch at the church.
Challenge 7 – we came over the next ridge and there in the valley was a little building – Serpentine Church. With the church in sight, our tummies started rumbling, lunch was near – or so we thought. As we dropped down off the ridge, the road started becoming so so rutted, we’re talking waist deep ruts in places, slippery on the sides and once you chose a rut, you were stuck with it, come what may. Mostly this turned out ok, except in one case where I had to change ruts, slipping sideways trying to get out until I was perpendicular to the road, wheels both in slippery ruts, not able to go forwards or backwards. Bugger!! A bit of manhandling later I was headed in the right direction again and round the next corner was Steve, laughing (with maybe a few tears), a muddy boggy creek crossing staring back at him. The middle of the creek looked particularly boggy, but after stripping down to my undies and wading in I proved it wasn’t actually so bad. We picked a line, crossed our fingers and Steve boosted through. I followed after not bothering to get dressed again – that freeing feeling of riding in your undies!!!
Time for lunch at Serpentine Church, a fantastic spot, especially on such a beautiful day. It was once the highest altitude church in the country, up over 1000m. Essentially this church was a place or worship for the gold miners in the later 1800s – opened in 1873 – and later was a hut for musterers. A plaque on the wall tells the story of the first service at the church. The minister was late in arriving so the congregation, after waiting for a while, adjourned to the nearby hotel for refreshments and had been drinking heavily by the time the minister arrived. When the service finally opened with a well known psalm the, by now lively, congregation demanded an encore! The minister was not at all impressed, cut short the service and said he would never return. Classic!
We lapped up the serenity and enjoyed our lunch while discussing the afternoon plans. Given the slow progress we were making and the inability to get around Manorburn as we wanted to, we looked at the maps we had and found some tracks heading south towards Lake Onslow – let’s skip Poolburn and Manorburn and just try to get home tonight!!
Challenge 8 – leaving the church we headed on about 1km to the track we thought we wanted to take south. Now the issue was there was a fence in between us and the track, we searched up and down the fence and found no way through. Mmmmmm – what to do? It looked totally like we’d have to look at that other track we saw heading south back at the church – problem: there was a huge mud pit blocking us from progression on that route. But needs must, we headed back to give it a nudge. Steve volunteered to go first – effort one led to a mud hole, we managed to drag him back out of that one. Effort two led to a rooster tail of mud flying behind him followed by a mud hole, wheels half under the mud, bike stuck sitting up while we stood back and admired. A 20 minute workout later we hauled his bike from the far side of the mud hole and collapsed. Yet we still had to get my bike through too – we looked further afield and upstream found what looked like a big mossy swamp but in actual fact was some firmer swamp plant life that might serve our purpose. I sidled up the bank and lined up, and throttle full open I blasted at the swamp………and floated over the top, spraying a rooster tail of mud, water and plant life behind me and hit the far side, whopping in celebration!!! Apparently it was mighty impressive to watch – if only we’d taken a video 🙂
Challenge 9 – after a small break to compose ourselves again, we headed on back to the rutted and slippery tracks. It’s all about picking the right line when you see a big mess up in front of you. So you’re constantly searching ahead, scouting for what appears to be the best way through, filled with relief when you reach the other side only to start focusing on the next one. And if you get it wrong, come what may, you’ve got to stick with it and hope for the best. Sometimes this resulted in some slip-sliding, or some wet and muddy feet or if you get it badly wrong maybe a bike drop. As we headed away from the mud hole, a few hundred metres up the road I followed Steve into a big deep rutted mess of mud and water, saw his line and thought “that’s does not look good” and started frantically searching for another line. I found one that looked much better and as Steve slowed in a deep rut of mud and water I flew past by his shoulder and out the other side. Over the rise I headed, looking in my mirror, mmmmm no Steve – it didn’t go well, did it?!? I turned around and came back to see Steve was truly stuck – water over his wheels, his bike leaning against the side of the rut. He’d climbed out and was scratching his head – it was an amusing sight except for the fact that we had to get his bike out of there!!
We tried pushing and pulling but the suction around the wheels was too much, and it was mighty awkward because the bike was so far below us in the rut. We tried lifting it out over the side of the rut, again no luck. Too heavy, too much suction and again very awkward. What other options did we have?? Hang on, I’ve got some heavy duty tie downs in my top box, maybe we could loop them together to create a tow rope and pull him out. We measured the length of “rope” we had and how far in the muck he was. I’d have to go in halfway up my back wheel – I was skeptical that there’d be enough grip in there for me to get out, let alone to pull Steve out too, but it was worth a nudge at the very least! So we tied ourselves together, Steve managed to get his bike started and we gave it heaps. Grip came, suction released and we were outta there. More whoops for all!! 🙂
Challenge 10 – mid afternoon was on us and we knew we still had a fair way to go to get out onto a main road and then a couple of hours of road riding home, if only we could get through without any more major hurdles we’d probably be home by bedtime. Steve – why would you say a thing like this? Murphy jumped straight into action and we came over a ridge and started dropping down into a valley – it was very clear very quickly that there was a river at the bottom of this valley, we just hoped that the crossing wasn’t too full on. OMG – around the final corner we come and the river was impassable – it’s 20m wide and clearly at least waist deep if not deeper. This is a killer after so many challenges already, we have a quick funky moment before getting into some problem solving. We have no choice, we have to find a solution!
Option 1 – head back the way we’ve come, or back around Poolburn to try and get to a main road that way. We estimate this would be 3-4 hours of riding through the slippery mud before another 2.5hrs of road riding and we’re already feeling the effects of a big day.
Option 2 – work out a way to cross this damn river.
We decide on option 2, in our wisdom or stupidity :). We split, one heading up and one down stream to see if there is any possible way to cross this at another point. After 15 minutes we adjourn with a clear answer of no. The river becomes narrower but deeper and faster moving and it’d be impossible. So the only option left is to take the bikes through the crossing right there in front of us. We’re not really sure what it’d mean for the bikes getting them pretty much submerged, but we work through what our hypothesised impact would be and decide it’s worth the gamble. We rock off for first go and Steve loses (or wins) and he’s up. We unload the gear off the bikes and carry it over to test the waters. It is top-of-the-undies deep and got a reasonable flow about it and quite slippery on the rocks at the bottom. We set a strategy of one holding the handle bars on the downstream side and steering while stopping the bike being pushed downstream, while the other pushes from behind to keep the momentum up and get us through to the other side. Good strategy and we’re through with Steve’s bike. We decide to test it first before bringing my bike through, in case we can’t get it going and I have to head back out via option 1.
Let’s be honest – at this point we really didn’t know exactly what to do. So we fumbled around and worked our way through where the water could be. We emptied out the airbox, knew no water had got in through the exhaust (it wasn’t quite that deep) but on removing the spark plugs we found they were super wet so some water had got in the engine. We dried them off and tipped the bike over to drain as much water as we could from the engine. We put it back together and she fired but didn’t start. We felt confident she was going to start, so headed back over the river to get my bike.
We got my bike through the river and followed the same steps, although my spark plugs were dry so it mustn’t have taken on as much water, and when we tried the ignition my baby fired into life. One down, one to go. Back with Steve’s bike, it just wouldn’t fully fire up, she was clearly still flooded. It hadn’t cleared after sitting for about 30 mins while we dealt with my bike, so at this stage we wished we knew more about how to deal with a flooded bike (we have since learnt – key extra step we didn’t know – turn the engine over while the spark plugs are removed to eject any leftover water in the engine!!). We tried push starting and roll starting her, thinking that by getting the engine turning over that it might help – no luck. So we were now over the river but without two working bikes – at least one was going so we got our problem solving hats on again and considered options.
Challenge 11 – we only had one clear option left, without just leaving Steve and his bike behind, so we hooked up the “ropes” again. A few trial runs around the flat by the river got us very slightly practiced at towing and we got into it. Straight out of the flat was an uphill rutted section that gave me the shits, nothing else to do but hit it full on and hope like hell. We raced on up the uphill section like we’d done this before and we were on our way. 15 minutes of towing later without any mishaps, except for Steve getting a mud shower we arrived at a T-junction, we had made our way out the the worst bit of road onto a clearly more used road – one way headed back to Paerau, only 21 kms away – we were there at this time yesterday. The other way was Millers Flat, 44kms away. At the rate we were going that was somewhere between and hour and an hour and a half of towing away – but it was the main road from Dunedin to Queenstown so we decided that was a better option. The plan was to make it to Millers Flat, leave Steve’s bike there and pillion home.
Challenge 12 – at this point we also had cellphone reception again so we called the families and let them know what had been going on and that we’d be home by midnight if we were incredibly lucky! Then on with the towing we got, and it wasn’t easy on the slippery roads. Anytime we had to stop for a farm gate, the getting going again was wild – I’d be slip sliding all over the road trying to get some momentum up while Steve would be getting a shower of mud and working hard not to fall over. We fought on, making great progress averaging about 30km/hr until we came over another brow and looked down to the valley to see another river. You’ve got to be kidding me!! We pulled up and immediately felt some relief, although it was probably 15m wide, it was obviously not so deep or fast moving. Although we did decide the risk averse approach was better at this stage and we stripped down and pushed each bike through to ensure we avoided a mid-river mishap and we could carry-on on the other side.
As we headed down the road, every now and again Steve would try to start his bike to see if things had changed. For 25km they didn’t until, all of a sudden the weight went off the rope and I heard a huge whoop. I pulled over and Steve had a massive grin on his face, she was going again. He had no desire to wait around and let her stall again so headed off while I packed up the tie downs, relieved I didn’t have to do anymore towing (well hopefully not!!). We passed by Lake Onslow and headed into some more mainstream farming country. We were getting back nearer to civilisation, the gravel roads got better, things got less slippery and Steve’s bike kept going. Hallelujah!!
We arrived in Millers Flat hoping that on a Saturday night the pub would be open and we could get some food and a well earned rest. As we roared up to the pub, the publican popped her head and told us they were closed. She offered us chippies and water or a suggestion of heading off down to Beaumont in the hope that they might be open still. We thanked her but took offer number two and hit the road for Beaumont. On the way we stopped as Rae’s Junction pub wondering if that might be open, but met a lovely lady who told us how she’d bought the pub and turned it into her own marae. Cool stuff, but still no food or rest!!
Challenge 13 – so on we headed to Beaumont. If you don’t know Beaumont, it’s an iconic pub on the main road next to a long one lane bridge controlled by traffic lights with what seems to be nothing else around. One of those pubs where, in the olden days, everyone obviously drove home drunk after a night out. So in this day and age we were not expecting much, boy were we wrong. We rocked up and the pub was pumping, a live band inside, people spilling out into the car park and everyone in dress-ups. It was the annual Beaumont Christmas party – wow, two pubs in two random locations and two Christmas parties – how lucky are we. We wandered in to a lot of strange but accepting looks, and to our delight found the kitchen was still open, so ordered some food and set ourselves down at a spare table to enjoy the festivities and frivolities 🙂
After a great feed, a drink and a rest we headed back out to the bikes, sad to be leaving the fun of the party, but aware we still had a fair old whack of riding to do to get home. We rugged up and smashed out the last hour and a half home arriving a bit after midnight. We were super tired after such a huge day but ecstatic at what an amazing adventure we’d had. We’ve said it before but the biggest buzzes often come from the biggest challenges, and boy had we been challenged over the last…….32 hours. Even as I’m writing this it’s hard to believe how much we fitted in, in just 32 hours – can you believe it?? Not even a day and a half and we’ve done all that! Just goes to show you can’t waste a second – you’ve just got to get out there and do it, even if all you have is a day!!