A Dangerous Business

Date: 10th December 2023

Start: Pureora (km 938.9)

End: Camp Epic, Piropiro (km 975.4)

Distance Travelled: 40.2 km

Total Distance Completed: 902.4 km

Song Currently Stuck in Head: Dreams by Fleetwood Mac

Climbing a Hill on a Bike vs on my Feet: I’ll take my feet any day of the week

It’s bike time. Time to farewell the lovely town of Te Kuiti and hit the Timber Trail. Not everyone would be starting today. Till and Ron decided to walk the section to Pureora, Mirjam is going to try and hitch to the start, and a few others are just doing their own thing. Starting the trail today would be a party of 6: myself, Vicky (yes I have been spelling her name wrong this entire time), Sonja, Snacks, Maud, and Anne. We got picked up by Val at 8am and dropped at the carpark at the entrance to the trail. Half an hour later, our bikes and many other riders arrived. Indemnity forms signed, helmets on, and we were good to go.

As with most tracks in New Zealand, the start is nice and easy, designed that way to give users a false sense of security that the entire trail is going to be like that. The path was covered in gravel which managed to cover up most of the bumps, however I quickly realised that something was wrong either with my bike or how I was holding it as any small bump would cause a jolt of pain to go through my upper right arm.

I naturally tend to hold bikes with stiff arms which I think is turning them into shock absorbers. Arms do not make good shock absorbers. The fact that it’s only happening to my right arm is probably because I’m left handed and my left arm has a bit more muscle tone than my right. On a more positive note, the six of us (well five, Anne bolted away) were planning to stick together and support one another. We had 40 km to ride but news flash: riding a bike is a lot faster than walking, so there was no time pressure. This first forest is one of the rare areas that loggers never got to, helped by a large protest I believe in the 1960s. The benefits can be clearly seen and heard today. The sounds of kaka flying above the canopy was a beautiful noise for a bird enthusiast like me. I caught a brief glimpse of a couple, but not close enough to get a good photo of them.

The first 13 km were almost all uphill towards Mt Pureora. Couple onto that five bodies that aren’t tuned to cycling and you make for a pretty slow ascent. We stopped regularly to regain energy and stuck together as a form of encouragement. Then the rain started. Not heavy, but constant. Closing in on 950 m ASL, the clouds were now shrouding us from any sort of view, bringing with them all the moisture they were holding onto and dumping it onto us. The official trail goes up to the summit of Mt Pureora, however the track on the other side is no longer maintained by DOC and with the current weather we wouldn’t get to see anything anyway. It was also getting very cold, being up as high as Mt Pirongia and it raining. We figured it’d be best to just keep going on the real trail on the bikes (this is also why the distance completed doesn’t match up with the distance milestones at the start and end).

With the big climb now out of the way, I was hoping the ride would become a bit more enjoyable. It kinda did now that we could go a lot faster, but my shoulder was still playing up and made for an annoying distraction from a very pretty trail through the forest. Taking an extended lunch break at a small shelter a few kilometres from the trail’s summit, we were joined by David and Emmy who had opted to walk the trail. They seem to really love camping, as we’ve shared the trail with them for a few days now and in some circumstances where they could’ve taken a bed inside a building (like at Jo’s place) they still went with the tent. Each to their own I suppose, for me it’s always a blessing when I reach somewhere and don’t have to set up mine.

Although we stayed in that shelter in the hopes that the rain would let up, the clouds had other ideas. It kept falling as did our respective body’s temperatures, so we got back in the saddle and continued on our way, quickly reaching the first of many large suspension bridges we’d be crossing over the next couple days.

As a mechanical engineer, I had to swallow my pride a bit and give credit to the civvies who designed the bridge. It was very well put together, it kept stable the entire time I crossed it. I guess you guys are more than just glorified architects. It wasn’t long before we crossed another bridge just like it, this one also remaining nice and stable even with 5 riders on it. We reached another shelter a half hour later and stopped for another break. By this point we had been on trail for 4.5 hours and still had 12 or so km to go. The signs suggested it should take around 5 hours to reach the halfway point/tonight’s camp, but that wasn’t looking likely for us. Not that it mattered much, it was more important that we stayed safe and had fun, although that second objective was becoming harder to do as we became increasingly sorer as the day wore on. Legs were burning, bums were aching, and my right arm was still screaming at me. It didn’t help that the track wasn’t all the smooth either. There’d be sections of nice gravel track, but most of it was quite rocky and rooty. I couldn’t get any sort of cadence going on the bike because I kept having to coast over some sort of obstacle that would then rattle me around, sending more pain through my arm. I never felt in danger of falling over, but it did get pretty frustrating.

Compounding my frustrations was the weather. My rainjacket was now completely soaked, starting another round of the game of “is it rain or sweat I’m feeling on my skin?” The conditions meant that we all stuck together. We were all going pretty slowly, especially with me stopping every 5 minutes to rest my arm. Even so, the kilometre markers kept going up and in no time we passed the 40 km mark and Camp Epic hoved into view. Their main focus is on glamping, but they offer a special deal to TA hikers where we get all of the bike stuff, stay in our own tents at their campsite, and get dinner and breakfast provided. Not a bad deal at all.

The camp kitchen was very well stocked, including a fireplace and flannel ponchos, which I became an instant fan of. They also had showers, the thing that all hikers dream of each day. It doesn’t need to be said, but it was glorious.

The rain kept falling – annoyingly lightly – all afternoon and I was resigned to having to do another wet tent pitch. Then I had an idea. My tent isn’t free standing, but I could at least put the pole in and attach the fly to it, so maybe I could keep the insides dry? Turns out I could, good job me!

The afternoon was a relaxing affair of conversation with our fellow campers and downing of hot chocolates, but there was one piece of unfinished business we had to attend to. See, Camp Epic has an open pit fireplace that on a nice evening would be lit so we could toast marshmallows over it. To prepare for this, we had brought crackers and chocolate to make smores. But it wasn’t a nice evening, so our plans were scuppered. Or were they? Each table had a candle on it and we still had a jar full of marshmallows and skewers to put them on. I think you can see where I’m taking this. We lit the candle, toasted our marshmallows over it wearing our flannel ponchos, and made smores. Yes, it was as awesome as it sounds. But now it was time for bed. The rain had abated so we all made our way into our tents and prayed that our muscles would be rested by the time we woke up.