Saturday 5 May 2012

A Full Crossing

November 13, 2011

Rimutaka Rail Trail - Kaitoke to Cross Creek

Team - Mark, David, Snaiet, David, Myself

We hit the ultimate in weather - enough sunshine to be lovely, and enough cloud to not overheat. Seriously, how did we pull this off when we set the date so many weeks in advance?

A good crew of 5 arrived within 5 minutes of the allotted time at the Kaitoke carpark, and we were off pretty quickly. We cruised our way up the hill, with the odd complaint of the ride feeling like hard work, and a few slightly sore bums (mainly mine). Mark and I had done this half of the ride before, when we had been really keen to get across to Cross Creek, but hadn't arranged transport back (and weren't keen on riding back up to Summit from the other side).

Summit Station

We arrived at Summit just nicely at lunchtime, where we chilled out for half an hour or so, watching other walkers and cyclists go past. Many went through the tunnel and straight back (which Mark and I hadn't done last time as we had no torch). Riding through, even with a torch, was an interesting experience as it was a LOOOOOOOOONG tunnel.

Slow Zone (317:365)

The ride down into Siberia Gully was... interesting. A bit technically challenging if you were to ride it, and difficult to keep your footing and hold of your bike if you walked (which I did). Very steep! And then the ride from there down to Cross Creek was markedly steeper than the ride up to Summit, enough to make me a bit uncomfortable at times - I spent a lot of time on the brakes. (yes, I'm a scaredy cat!)

Siberia Gully

A quick detour to the old rail yards near the end and we all made it, with only a small fall or two going into Siberia, and had a good half an hour to spare before our shuttle collected us to return to Kaitoke. A good day, and one I'm somewhat surprised to have not gotten around to repeating (although, that said, it was probably more interesting on the Wellington side than the other)

Yards
Waiting at the (former) station

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