Tuesday 8 December 2009

On the 8th I made the move to Golden Bay over Takaka Hill and a sweet singletrail all the way down to Takaka I heard a lot about already.
Almost everybody did tell me that Takaka Hill would be "a reallt bad one" meaning it would seriously steep and long and and and and just mean.
So I was kind of interested in how it would turn out to be actually ;)
I wanted therefor start in the early morning to avoid the midday heat, but packing the tent and everything together took a bit longer then expected and so I decided not to hurry and had a nice breakfast on the beach before I went off (was round 10 by then) :)
The hill itself was indeed not too bad but by far not that hard as everybody told me, so I got up quite well with a few pauses to put the backpack down...
The view from the top then made the effort worth it :) *good bye Abel Tas - hello Golden Bay*
What I didn't know was that there is some "tiny" bit of gravel road between the top of the hill and Canaan Downs, where the Rameka Track should have his beginning...
Those 2hs on a windy, hilly, gravel road really costed me several litres of sweat as it was by then just 1 nidday and hot as hell.
Was glad to reach the little doc campsite over there and having - after a little snack - this nice singletrail leading through the forest.
It was not completly ridable with my pack, but still great! :)
Especially the Project Rameka part at the end was just a dream being ust as wide as a towel and suuuuper flowy :D
The thought was to go on a bit farther the Takaka, but after I arrived in Takaka I didn't really want to move on much more so I just stayed there for a night in the Barefoot Backpacker.


view over Kaiteriteri










top of Takaka Hill
































working my up that baaaaad gravel road, might look kind of exhausted cause of that...













however it's really beautifull up there (at least when you don't have to be focused on riding up there and start looking around you ;) )


was looking forward to that all day :)









on the upper part of the Rameka (on the lower part it was just too much fun to ride, so I didn't stop for pics ;) )