November 2023
Jenny welcomed members.
Mt Dalgety
November 26th 2023
Setting off at 7am, Mark, John and Jonathan headed up to the Hakataramea Pass, picking up Fiona on the way.
With warm weather and sunny blue skies we set off from the newly installed cattle grid at the top of the pass heading up the fence line. John brought his Sika saw along for some wilding pine clearing, but only saw a few as the land is being well managed by the station owners. At the two-thirds mark John stopped whilst the other three carried on to the top, where there was light wind and great views all around the Mackenzie, the Waitaki and across to the Grampian range.
Little Mt. Peel
Sunday 19 November 2023
Five of us left Oamaru on a partly cloudy day and headed up through Geraldine where we stopped for a coffee break before heading to the car park for Mt Peel at the end of Blandswood Rd.
We set off just before 9.30am on the Deer Spur Track with low cloud around the mountain tops, but we were optimistic it would clear. The first hour & and a half is a steep hike up through the Mt Peel Forest with some wooden steps build for giants and a bit of mud here and there to negotiate, which we got around not too badly.
After coming out of the bush the cloud had lifted a bit, so we got a view of the ridge to come and that there was still more up. The track was pretty good with some boardwalk sections and the last part before the top was steep and rocky.
We got to the top at 1311m about 12.15pm and we were all in agreement that Little Mt Peel was not as little as everyone thinks. Lunch was had, taking in the views but we couldn’t see Big Mt Peel because it was covered in cloud.
After lunch and taking photos, we decided to tackle the South Ridge Route down, which looked like it descended steeply over a narrow rocky ridge for a couple of hundred metres before levelling out a bit.
The track was a narrow track with plenty of scrub to hold on to – to stop us from slipping over in places, and even when it did level off a bit it was still a bit rocky with some ups and downs. After about an hour we were back in the bush descending steeply down to Emily Stream and a side visit to the Emily falls.
From here it was on the Emily falls track back out to the car park after 6 ½ hours of hiking and covering about 10.5 km. We all agreed that we had done enough hiking for the day and we would probably feel it the next day, so it was back to Geraldine for a refreshment stop before heading home.
I would like to thank Julian, Jonathan, Jenny and Mike for making the slog up more enjoyable.
Neville
North Otago Back Country Roads Bike Ride
Saturday 11 November 2023
The planned ride the previous Sunday was postponed because of wet cold weather, so with a brilliant fine day nine riders turned up at the Cant’s Road shelter on the Alps to Ocean bike trail at 1-30 pm.
We headed down the A2O towards Duntroon, thankful that the track had at long last been repaired and made more resilient from the 2022 flood. A stop was made at Grants Road where one rider discovered a thorn in his tyre which necessitated a quick repair job. We continued down past Elephant Rocks to the Duntroon Livingstone Road before turning left and zooming up the flat towards Livingstone.
The e bikes made short work of the Livingstone pinch and soon we were on Smiths Road, riding through the carbon farm, newly replanted after the fire which caused so much damage. There were quite a few hills through here but we made good time, appreciating the 360 degree views. We eventually turned on to Davidson Road, which was mainly downhill, emerging on to the Tokarahi Tapui Road and a short ride up Cant’s Road to our cars shortly before 5 pm.
An enjoyable 42k ride through the North Otago Back country.
Ross
October 2023
Meeting held Mon.7th Oct 2023