Silly Billies Return to Roam

Day Four In the morning snow blanketed the ground and thick cloud hung around the tops. Every so often snow would start drifting thickly down again. After a day spent dragging our bikes up through thick forest with no track, it was a little disappointing to have finally reached the ride-able part only to have it become unrideable again due to being covered in about a foot of snow. We made a big bowl of porridge for breakfast, then coffee, then heated up two minute noodles for morning tea. We were unsure whether to call it a hut day, or to continue. Cozy times at Ghost Lake Hut Our rations were a bit low and the snow was continuing to accumulate, so we decided it probably made sense to continue. It took us a fair while to pack and put on all our layers of warm clothes - reluctant to leave the cozy hut with its amazing views. The trail from Ghost Lake hut winds up the mountainside further, and then traverses high on the ridgetop. We had to push our bikes due to the amount of snow, ...

Day Three At Goat Creek Hut, halfway through the partially completed Ghost Ride, we woke to an overcast sky. We knew this day was going to be a challenging one... Reports weren't great for the state of the track from about 2 km up this track until we reached Ghost Lake Hut in about 18 km and up a very large hill covered in thick native bush. We set out from the hut after porridge and were happy to find we could ride quite a bit further than we thought we might be able to, including a small part of the first climb. But finally, at the site of a small tarpaulin and some pick axes, we reached the end of the road (so far). It took  us a bit of time to rearrange all the gear from our bikes into our packs, but finally bikes were hefted onto backs and we set up off some weird moonscape terrain following some pink markers. Before long these petered out and based on the map we decided there may have been a trail marked earlier heading off up the hill. So, back down we went to the track e...

Most people imagine honey moons are all about lying on beaches and drinking wine in the sunset. We decided that sounded nice, but perhaps a tad boring and unenergetic. We wanted an adventure! So, we put together our favourite things - biking, beaches (particularly wild west coast ones), good food, bush bashing, unexplored territory, mountains... presto! The Kahurangi Moon Ride! Here is our planned trip As soon as this plan came to fruition we realised one snag - the Heaphy Track was only open to bikers for one more day this season. Brown Hut became our necessary starting point, and we would have to ride through the track in one day. Day One At 8 am the dew at the Brown Hut Road end was just starting to evaporate and the sandflies just starting to gather forces. Another vehicle pulled up with three excited bikers about to ride the track as well - they were catching a helicopter back to their car that night. Using a selection of Revelate gear bags on our bikes and because we ha...