Trail map (Tracks.org.nz)

This was my favorite ride of the trip. After a bit a slow start (the beer at the Upper Moutere Pub is bloody good), Zane and I parked up in Nelson and headed along Brook Street and headed up at one of the many entrances onto the Dun Mountain walkway. 

Dun Mountain trail is built on New Zealand’s first railway, so the gradient is great. We spun up the first part of the track, through some kind of Mtb park, and past a reservoir and into some pines. The trail up to this point is on a wide bench, but only a single track due to over growth. It wasn’t long till we were on the walkway it’self. This is wider with a rock (not gravel) surface and meanders through more Beech forest.

It was noon by the time we got to 3rd House shelter. I am not sure how long it took us to get there as neither of us bothered to check the time when we started. While we sat down to eat, the heaven’s opened. We could have turned back, but what was a nice easy climb on the way up, would have been boring down, so we pushed on to the saddle. 

The trail after 3rd House is the same surface, but gets a little tricker. Or that could have been the weather. Riding on wet, black rock in the doom and gloom, maybe it just seemed harder.

We passed the turn off to Fringed Hill, this leads into Sunshine and Peaking Ridges which were our original plan. But in this sort of weather I think for me they would have been suicidal.

Some time after the turn off, the beech forest changed to more open scrub and mineral belt. This meant we were pretty close to the saddle. After a brief stop so that I could put on my pads, we were into the downhill. 

One of the reasons I liked this down hill is that it starts off slow. After a couple of hours of climbing, it takes me a few moment to adjust to going down. The surface is trippy. Really spongy but plenty of grip. A few minutes in and the surface changes again, this time to baby head sized rock gardens. Now I thought this would once again do my head in, but for some reason I was in a much better mood, and I was able to relax and enjoy it. The rock gardens seemed to go on forever, broken up by the odd stream crossing. 

Given that we passed a digger and power barrow parked up, this trail is obviously under going some kind of upgrade. Who ever is doing it has a pretty good eye, and there were some nice berms and pumpy sections. 

The last hurdle was the stream crossing at the bottom. Given the amount of rain that was falling, it was up and running fast. Slow and steady, we carried our bikes across. 

In a way it felt like after this stream crossing, the ride was over. But there was still some pretty sweet single track before we hit the road. 

If I ever do this ride again, I’ll try to get someone to met me up the Maitai Valley Rd. The ride back to town is a good 10 k’s that to be honest, I could have done with out. And after such a fun down, it was a little anti climatic. 

Still this was my favorite ride of the trip. I am not sure why, but I was in a better frame of mind. Maybe it is a little less challenging than some of the other rides we had done, or maybe I was just slowly getting into the groove. Whatever the reason, despite the weather, this is the ride that I think of the most when I recall this trip. 

Once again no pics, we would have needed an underwater camera. But there are some older photos on the Nelson Mountain Bike Club site that give you an idea of the terrain. I think the trail we rode has replaced much of harder Boulder Valley trail, but you get the idea.