Day 11 - January 21, 2023

January 21, 2023

Day 11: Whakamaru - Timber Trail Lodge

We make a Bee Line for the lovely Pureora Forest Park and the topographical centre of the North Island. And then the fun begins! The Timber Trail is famous for stunning stands of virgin forest bush saved from logging in the 1970s. Remote cycle trail and cool bridges bring us to the Timber Trail Lodge.

Well, I'm thinking today should be titled "Mountain Biking 101". I now know why I've been hauling the big beast around all this time!

But first - lots of evidence of power generation from the dam in the village where we stayed last night.

Beautiful morning light on the surrounding hillsides.

The first 15 km or so was on paved roads and gave no indication of what the rest of the day would look like. A bit of gravel and a snack stop with the van & trailer at about 18km. Then - no more road......

We had been told to expect this bridge, but I must admit that I had forgotten about that part of the briefing. I was first to it, so managed to manhandle my bike up onto it's rear wheel and negotiate my way across.

Here's Richard demonstrating the technique.

In my roadie mind I found the next 4km to be quite challenging. At one point I was calculating how long it would take me to walk my bike to lunch at 44km. Thankfully I was able to ride most of it and then after about 4km it turned to gravel road without any technical issues. A few of us did a little side trip to the geographical centre of the north island. Not too exciting, but for me it was a nice excuse to get off the bike for a bit. And - nice trail through a beautiful forest.

And finally out of the forest..... I took this picture because I just love these grasses, and we sure saw lots of them today.

Lunch at about 44km and then the mountain biking began in earnest on the Timber Trail. The trail is rated "easy", but being a rookie I spent equal time having fun and feeling mildly suicidal.

Opened in 2013, the purpose-built Timber Trail celebrates the heritage and the passion of New Zealanders for this special part of the King Country. Up until the 1840s the area was covered in dense virgin forest, alive with birdlife. As European settlement expanded, demand for timber grew and forests across Aotearoa were felled. Pureora Forest was one of the last areas in the North Island to be harvested. In 1946 the loggers moved in and cranked their saws, extensively logging large tracts of native forest, replacing them with exotic plantations. In 1978 environmentalists climbed high into the canopy to protest again further logging, resulting in the government preserving it for future generations. Today Pureora Forest Park is one of the rarest and most most precious stands of broad-leaf podocarp forest in the North Island, and one of the last remaining intact podocarp forests in the world. It is home to a range of remarkable and often rare native wildlife, including some remarkable birds. I did see lots of birds, but heard many, many more; some with pretty unique calls. A pleasure to have as background noise as I focussed on not launching from my bike. It really was lovely, but a long day in the saddle and a rather aggressive first day of mountain biking.

Near the start of the trail was a side trip to see this historic Crawler Tractor. Seems I was the only one to go and see it.

A few miscellaneous shots along the trail.

Apparently there are eight significant suspension bridges on the trail. We saw 4 today. This first one (Bog Inn Creek) is 115m long. The second was Orauwaka Bridge.

The trail is very well marked, with these mileage markers every km.

I was very happy to finally see the marker for the Timber Trail Lodge, our accommodation for the night. It's very nice and modern out here in the middle of nowhere. They'll feed us dinner and breakfast in the morning, along with providing a packed lunch. A very long and hard day today and just about everyone was ready to fall asleep in their soup tonight. More mountain biking tomorrow. Wish me luck!