Cream Run to Mt Ears

CREAM RUN TO MT EARS Cycling around Marlborough Sounds O ctober school holidays and I had another two weeks leave. Things were looking good—two days ski touring at Tukino, followed by Harry’s three day Snowflake trip in the Seaward Kaikouras, a four day break with my mountain bike and then joining Tony’s trip to Tapuae-O-Uenuku and Mt Alarm in the Inland Kaikouras.

But the weather resulted in one good day of ski touring with fresh powder and sunshine and an absence of wind. Harry meanwhile had emailed that there was a slowly decreasing number of punters for his trip and that he was being invaded by the flu. With less than a week to go I decided to go south solo with my mountain bike to D’Urville Island and catch up later with Tony’s trip at Picton. As my trip progressed severe rain warnings were posted for the Kaikouras, with snow down to 300 m in Arthur’s Pass, and hence the second WTMC trip was cancelled as we may have been hit by the Antarctic blast half way up the Hodder River. But I caught an eight day weather window, escaped the rain, and even had a couple of balmy 16 degree days by the sea.

D’Urville Island was on my 50’s list and a place I had wanted to go to for many years. The logistics of getting there with any WTMC proposed trips outside of my long school holidays meant I never joined one. The Hutt Valley Mountain Bike Club had visited the previous year, hiring a boat from Mana to D’Urville and taking all the bikes with them. I remembered vague murmurs of ‘steep hills’ and ‘right angle pulleys to get boats out of the water’.

Things fell into place when I was enquiring about water taxis to D’Urville Island. I was told about the Pelorous Mailboat (previous called the Cream Run) that visited the Outer Sounds every Friday. I emailed the mailboat man a request for one mountain bike chick and bike passage to Port Ligar and for the station contact details so I could ask permission to cross their land. The friendly fourth generation Port Ligar owner kindly agreed to give me access from Waterfall Bay to the public road on the ridgeline in return for an afternoon of Woofing to help out her very pregnant daughter-in-law.

It was a dream trip motoring up Pelorous Sound dropping mail off at various baches. Being greeted by kunikuni pigs on the jetties and watching gannets diving vertically into the water to catch fish. Dusky and common dolphins played in the boat’s bow wave. The three hour trip from Havelock to Waterfall Bay is a perfect out of season trip with wonderful views of the DOC reserve on Maud Island and the growing number of mussel farms in the district.

My Woofing jobs done, I had a gorgeous two hour paddle at sunset in Port Ligar bay watching the dolphins swim in the pink and yellow light in a millpond-flat sea. The lodge owner offered me venison for dinner and a sag wagon ride up the very steep, four wheel drive, 450 m hill climb to the edge of their land the next morning. A real treat as I was carrying tent, fuel, stove and six days of food.

Then a lovely morning roll along the 25 km ridgeline on the tongue of land that stretches south west from Port Ligar, then north to French Pass, with views across Admiralty Bay to D’Urville Island. The tops were in low cloud which finally burnt off at mid-day to a perfect stillness, so calm that people were kayaking from French Pass to D’Urville in shorts and t-shirts.

The DOC campground at French Pass has not much to recommend it except that it exists—the bore water was foul tasting, there is no privacy, and a weka came and stole my carefully dehydrated kumara (my carbohydrate for the next few days) which put me on half rations. But I had the place to myself, no sand-flies, no mosquitos, no wind, no rain, no noise, no business of others and no one else’s music. A perfect sunrise from my tent door of a millpond between myself and D’Urville Island. I felt I was on a tropic island, not waiting for Antarctica to release her furry on the isle.

Ross at Wilderness Resorts gave me a back-ride on his water taxi to D’Urville. He knew about the hills and remembered the Hutt Valley boys who moored in the bay and pushed their bikes up the hill. He offered to drop me at Kapowai and take my gear back to his lodge at Catherine’s Cove. An excellent idea, I could roll the gravel roads along the watershed of the D’Urville weight free. The clouds drifted in and out with views of the mainland and beyond.

The day was warm and turned hot when I descended the awesome, steep, 3 km, 500 m, recently graded, four wheel drive descent into Catherine’s Cove and was out of the cloud again. I was offered a couple of potatoes so that I would have energy to roll again the next day. Ross was planning to go hunting with his grandson on the far side of the island and had offered to give me a sag waggon ride up the hill. I was thankful for this and then was able to roll to Mt Ears with views to the west of the island and east across the strait to Waikanae.

But I jump ahead—the resort had good camping areas but I was happy to go Woofing again to stay in the fisherman’s lodge, thereby avoiding any chance of meeting another weka. As hunting was to occur in the evening, I had a lovely morning kayak around Catherine’s Bay and walk along the Waterfall Track. Ross, the current leaseholder, had cut other new walking tracks through his land and built a pulley system to get his boats out of the water by reversing a van along the beach. A local came over to watch the rugby that night on the big screen, as he only had a black and white TV and a telephone in his woolshed that operates by turning the handle numerous times to get a connection. I felt very remote.

I fare welled the island the next day as a rough sea was forecast. Other residents at Catherine’s Bay were also returning to French Pass and offered to take my gear up the 12km road with a 480 m climb from French Pass to Saddle Hill and leave it in the bushes 10 km from the turn off to Elaine Bay. It was becoming the perfect cycle touring holiday, with only one day in four carrying any gear.

An easterly wind of about 5 kph kept the cloud hugging the hill tops and the day cool until I descended from the ridgeline into Elaine Bay and recovered my gear, before cycling sedately along the Archers grade three mountain bike track to Penzance Bay. A friend had a bach here I was able to use for the night. I was very thankful as the forecast was heavy rain sweeping up the island and crossing to the North Island early the next day. The carport would have been sufficient but the bach felt like luxury as the rain pelted down all night, but then was gone by dawn. The Outer Sounds has Vodaphone connection, the Inner Sounds has Telecom—Penzance Bay only had the local land line.

I have previously cycled the Nydia Track from near Penzance Bay back to Havelock, but after the previous night’s ride the track would have been un-rideable and I choose the road south over Opouri Saddle. At the top my phone started pinging to tell me Tony’s trip had been cancelled. A long, gentle descend into the Rai Valley and a local phone call at the café to organise a bus to pick me up the next morning at 9 am from the DOC campground at Pelorous Bridge back to Picton. I missed all the day’s rain while in the café. The DOC campsite here is a bargain—the luxury of hot showers, gas stoves and a nearly empty campground for the $12 peak season prices while surrounded by beautiful podocarp forest and a great café just 100 m away.

On the eight day I woke dry and warm, cleaned and emptied my panniers into my stuff bag and waited for the bus in sunshine. Travelling to Picton I could see the Richmond Ranges were shining white with a new thick coating of snow. I caught the mid-day ferry home, arriving at my front door 30 minutes before the rain started. A wee gem of an off season trip where the tranquillity of the Sounds, good weather and great MTB riding combined into a very relaxing holiday, while those in Wellington has spent the previous week cursing the bad weather.