Bongo shuttling - Wakamarina

At the Trans NZ we met Marty and Jenny who are also the proud owners of a Mazda Bongo! 🚐🚐

We had grand ideas to pair up with them and do the point to point back country tracks at Wakamarina and Nydia Bay. Things didn't go quite to plan... turns out we maybe should have done a bit more research.

We set off on Monday to tackle the Wakamarina track, after shuttling our vehicles to the 'put in' and 'take out' and epic levels of faff we set off at midday cycling up the kiwi road in the blistering heat only to meet a road closure 30 mins into our climb. Without a plan B we had no choice but to turn back to the van. We decided it was too late to complete the ride before sunset so after an ice cream stop (and a whole frozen cheesecake for Marty) we returned to the campsite to reevaluate.

On Tuesday, we decided to go for Wakamarina take 2 rather than the original Nydia Bay plan. Due to the road closure we had an extra long Bongo shuttle and an even longer climb up the road to the start of the trail.

When we finally reached the start of the Wakamarina, we were not disappointed. Native beech forest, lots of single track climbing and a bit of hike a bike but wow were the descents worth it!! The final descent dropped 800m down twisting, turning, rocky, rooty switchbacks leaving us with the biggest smiles on our faces by the time we reached Devil's Creek Hut at the bottom.

After crossing Doom Creek and reaching the van our day was far from over. The boys had a 2.5 hour shuttle to run whilst Jenny and I rode 15km back to Canvastown. After lots of no hands riding, running man, YMCA, and planking practice, we made it to the pub in Canvastown with minutes to spare before dark!!

48km with 1765m climbing and so much fun and laughter!

Now we have a 5.30 start for the ferry north tomorrow!

ChristineRead more