Girls Day Out MTB ride

Yesterday, Sara Macdonald organised an awesome day-adventure for the Dunedin weekly womens MTB riding group. Normally, we meet every Monday evening and head out for a ride (usually led by Sara), but a couple of times a year, Sara organises a longer day-trip that takes place in the weekend. The last one I went to was to Pulpit Rock and back before I left Dunedin, so I was looking forward to some more fun and adventure.

Sunday morning was quite chilly, but with clear blue skies, it turned out to be an awesome day. After meeting at 9am at a local spot 5 minutes from home, we carpooled out to the start of the morning's ride - a there and back ride to Green Hut (well, there was a hut there once upon a time that got burnt down apparently) just past Waitati, north of Dunedin. There was a bit of pushing at the start as the rain had made the track quite muddy and boggy in places, but once we got past the worst of it, it was mostly rideable, with nice singletrack through the trees. We met up with a couple of tramping groups out there, including a group of female students from US/Canada - it was great seeing so many people out and enjoying the outdoors!


And then it was the return trip back to the cars - gosh that was heaps of fun! I got to work on my descending skills in the mud, and was pleasantly surprised at how much of the stuff we thought was unrideable when we pushed our bikes up was actually rideable when we came down! Weeee! Sliding around in the mud - pretty sure I was grinning like an idiot on the way down!


We stopped for lunch at the Blueskin Bay Cafe in Waitati, which was part of a cool garden centre (must head back there at some stage!), then headed to ride the Heyward Point track. A few undulating gravel roads to get out there, then a grassy track that headed along and then down into Aramoana. The views out to the Otago peninsula awesome up there..





The descent was fairly steep and was over quite quickly. Before we knew it, we were in Aramoana and in for a nice road ride around the bays back to Port Chalmers, then meandered up the hill to where the cars were parked. We arrived just as the sun was disappearing behind the hill around quarter to 5.

All up, the ride was just under 3 hours ride time (35km), and a great day out with excellent company. Cheers Sara!

For more information about the weekly womens riding group, head along to www.mountainbikingotago.co.nz.