Day 12: Picton

Today was our last day of off road riding. It was not a nothing day. The Rainbow Road is generally a benign track. Our original plan was to ride back north on the Molesworth road but this is currently closed to motorised traffic due to fire risk. The Rainbow heads more west and is consequently usually wetter which can bring other challenges. Regardless it was our route out of Hanmer as the alternatives were state highway one north of Kaikōura or the Lewis pass to the west. Both are long sealed roads and we will see plenty of that tomorrow. Bernie did travel via Kaikōura as he was visiting family and friends there and the other 3 went off into low cloud and drizzle on the Rainbow. It was atmospheric and beautiful. 

Once we got to the upper reaches of the Wairou River we might have had the first inkling that things were going to be a little different from our trip south a week ago. There was a new shingle fan across the road which we rode across with minimal issues. Things changed a short distance further when we came across a wall of mud and debris across the road that was clearly very fresh. My first thought was that we were poked. There was a huge volume of porridge like mud with a big washout in the middle. The mud covered the road and extended in a big fan into the river below. We did a bit of scoping around and established that there was no way we could get through the mud which was like quicksand. There was a line that might work riding up a bank, through a narrow part of the washout and then across the top edge of the mudslide. It started raining and with things quite active on the slip front I wasn’t keen to muck around. Short version is we exchanged several buckets of sweat for 20 metres of forward motion. There were 2 more slips over the next couple of hundred metres which we were able to negotiate with less difficulty. Once we were through Dave Lear celebrated by hurdling his bike and falling into the ditch, the same move he demonstrated in the car park in Tekapo but now executed to perfection. Nobody was there to see it and I reassured him I wouldn’t mention it. Dave Mac pulled the bike off him. 

DM wanted a coffee and I was keen to get away from the area. Fortunately I am a student of Darwin and therefore my application of the laws of natural selection overcame my desire to keep DM happy and we travelled a little further down the road where quite bizarrely there was no evidence of rain. Coffee stop had and everyone was happy so onwards we went. 

The gatekeepers of Rainbow station were quite surprised to see us as they had assessed the track as impassable. To be fair, any bigger bikes and certainly cars would not get through. The mudslide had dammed the river raising its level by a meter or so but this had been washed away by the time we got there. They said it was a very localised downpour with thunder and lightning, very very frightening the night before. 

From there it was a cruisy ride to St Arnaud and then onwards to Picton. 

Tomorrow is a big day, with early ferry and then a big transport up the North Island to go home.