nev
Super Térrarist
Day 12 Reefton to Mt Lyford
Just out of town on the way into Reefton there was a signpost to a lookout. First thing this morning we headed up that road. After a km or so the lookout was signposted off the bitumen onto a dirt road, which then let to another, and another dirt track, and at some point the track really deteriorated to the point where it wasn’t safe to ride any more, so we turned about. No Lookout photos, but here is one on the way back down the track.
Then we headed out to lewis pass.
Morning tea was a pie at a cafe at the interesection of Hwy 65 & Hwy 7. Then fuel at Hanmer Springs, and a lunch stop at a bakery in Culverden.
From Culverden we headed east over the hills. We’d come down this road in the opposite direction on our last trip here in 2012.
About a dozen gates to be negotiated on this road which runs over hills and through valleys and a few fords. At one paddock as I got off to open a gate I noticed a lamb which had attempted to jump a gate on the other side of the paddock to get away from the bikes. It had somehow managed to get itself hooked on the gate, with one of it’s hind legs stuck in the cyclone pattern from the far side of the gate and the other stuck in the cyclone on the near side. Lucky it was only a lamb and not a full sized sheep. Fortunately the poor thing stopped struggling as soon as I got there and tried to help it, and I had to lift the animal above the gate in order to be able to get it out of it’s predicament. As we rode off, the lamb abandoned the rest of it’s flock and started making a bee line to follow our motorbikes, so we had to make a hasty exit.
We visited the beach down at Port Robinson,
Then we took the sealed Leader Road back from Hwy 1 to Waiau (pronounced Why-oh) where we stopped for an icypole and fuel.
This section of road I have ridden through on each of the 3 trips I have done to the NZ south island, and each time I have stopped to take a photo. You can see that a lot of restoration work has taken place reinforcing the road as it climbs up the hill. Many of the roads in this area were damaged in the 2016 earthquake. The epicentre was about 10km south of Waiau.
November 2018
Our stop for the night was at the Mt Lyford Lodge. A big log cabin with bar. Restaurant, some motel type rooms and some bunkhouse accommodation. No telephone service or television and the wifi was quite flakey so it did become the one night of the trip when were were disconnected, resorting to reading books and sleeping early.
Just out of town on the way into Reefton there was a signpost to a lookout. First thing this morning we headed up that road. After a km or so the lookout was signposted off the bitumen onto a dirt road, which then let to another, and another dirt track, and at some point the track really deteriorated to the point where it wasn’t safe to ride any more, so we turned about. No Lookout photos, but here is one on the way back down the track.
Then we headed out to lewis pass.
Morning tea was a pie at a cafe at the interesection of Hwy 65 & Hwy 7. Then fuel at Hanmer Springs, and a lunch stop at a bakery in Culverden.
From Culverden we headed east over the hills. We’d come down this road in the opposite direction on our last trip here in 2012.
image from 2012
About a dozen gates to be negotiated on this road which runs over hills and through valleys and a few fords. At one paddock as I got off to open a gate I noticed a lamb which had attempted to jump a gate on the other side of the paddock to get away from the bikes. It had somehow managed to get itself hooked on the gate, with one of it’s hind legs stuck in the cyclone pattern from the far side of the gate and the other stuck in the cyclone on the near side. Lucky it was only a lamb and not a full sized sheep. Fortunately the poor thing stopped struggling as soon as I got there and tried to help it, and I had to lift the animal above the gate in order to be able to get it out of it’s predicament. As we rode off, the lamb abandoned the rest of it’s flock and started making a bee line to follow our motorbikes, so we had to make a hasty exit.
We visited the beach down at Port Robinson,
Then we took the sealed Leader Road back from Hwy 1 to Waiau (pronounced Why-oh) where we stopped for an icypole and fuel.
This section of road I have ridden through on each of the 3 trips I have done to the NZ south island, and each time I have stopped to take a photo. You can see that a lot of restoration work has taken place reinforcing the road as it climbs up the hill. Many of the roads in this area were damaged in the 2016 earthquake. The epicentre was about 10km south of Waiau.
November 2018
Our stop for the night was at the Mt Lyford Lodge. A big log cabin with bar. Restaurant, some motel type rooms and some bunkhouse accommodation. No telephone service or television and the wifi was quite flakey so it did become the one night of the trip when were were disconnected, resorting to reading books and sleeping early.