Queen Charlotte Track

Region

Nelson - Marlborough

Type

MUni

Level

Advanced

More Info

www.qctrack.co.nz

Contributed By

Steve Pavarno

71km of single trail, and we were the probably first unicyclists to ride it.

Images from the Queen Charlotte Track Ken Looi and Steve Pavarno took the water taxi from Picton to Anakiwa to pick up Rachel Shaw and Peter van Boekhout, then zoomed around to Ships Cove where the track starts.

The first hill is steep, loose and rocky: totally unrideable up or down. But the climb is worth it. The top has a platform giving your first view of the sounds, and some friendly weka. The weka seemed quite mystified by our unicycles: one tried to eat Steve's trusty KH saddle, so we quickly drew its attention away with offerings of muesli bar.

The weather had been dry for days, so the first downhill was fast. The track is wide and mostly smooth, with a few rocks, roots and erosion control boards to add challenge. The bush changes from beech forest to manuka scrub to nikau grove and back again: beautiful! It is probably 80-90% rideable. The valve stem on Rachel's tube split away from the tyre on the first downhill, causing instant deflation. Luckily Ken had a spare, but this was only the start of the trouble.

The second big hill takes you to a lookout with views across Endeavour Inlet to Punga Cove, which was our goal for the day. It looked so close, but we were less than half way through the day's ride. We tended to walk almost anything with an upward slope: many of the uphills were gentle enough to be rideable, but everyone prefeered to save their legs for the next day, except Peter who had an unnatural amount of fitness even for a 16 year old.

First blood went to Steve, when his wheel bounced off a rock the wrong way on the next downhill. He landed upside down in a punga two metres down the bank, losing his glasses and his dignity. Luckily the glasses were quickly found again in the leaf litter. The downhills were awesome, fast and smooth with plenty of room, and really really long. They are the kind of downhill you are still smiling about two weeks later.

We arrived at Furneaux lodge about 2:30pm for a late lunch at the waters edge. A few quick unicycle lessons soon had the locals laughing, and they let us fill up our camel-baks after a photo shoot. It had taken us about 4.5 hours so far, so we raced on around the edge of the bay to get to the Backpackers before dark. It was slippery in places, probably 50% rideable.

We stayed at Mahana Lodge, just around from Camp Bay, arriving just on dark at 5:30pm. By amazing coincidence, a journalist from the Marlborough Mail was staying the weekend so she could write a review on the Lodge. So obviously the food was superb! The lodge is comfortable and clean, with a kent fire, a view out to the sea, hot showers and warm beds. Mmmmmm! The company was very pleasant, and the hosts effusive in their welcome.

It started drizzling about 6pm and rained all night. We were a bit worried about the clay tracks, but everyone at the lodge had woken up early to see us off at 8am, so we had to go: wet or dry!

We followed the gravel road up the ridge behind Mahana Lodge on to the Track again: we didn’t have to backtrack at all. The rain was light but reasonably continuous, with the odd break to give us a stunning view over the sounds. The early part of the day was steep and hard to ride on the uphills, but again thouse beautiful sweeping downhills kept the smiles on our faces.

The pressure was on a bit: our first day was 26km, which meant we had to cover 45km on the second, and all before about 4:30pm when it would get too dark to ride in the bush. About 5km from Portage Rachel's valve stem broke again. Dr Ken devised a new surgical procedure to ensure the patient would remain inflated: boring a hole in a patch and pushing it tightly over the valve. By the time we got halfway down the road to Portage the tyre was flat again. It could have been the end of the ride for Rachel, but the dairy in Portage had 26" tubes for sale (and yummy sausage rolls too). And did I mention the downhill? So long and sweet and smooth.

It was 3pm by the time we got back on the road again, so we skipped the next hill section and rode 10km along the road around to A(something) Bay, rejoining the track there. At 4pm with 12km to go and only maybe 45 minutes of rideable daylight, we raced up the track. It is quite open and exposed in the first half, so it was more rocky, slippery, rutted, and far less rideable to tired legs either up or down. The terrain is quite steep too, the track carved out of the side of the hill, making the consequences of a fall a bit more serious.

Once we hit the bush again the last 5-6 km was probably 95% rideable and much smoother than anything we'd seen earlier, but sadly it was too dark for us. Ken had the foresight to buy a torch at the dairy, and Rachel had a headlamp so we split into pairs and rode the bits we could. It was so dark in the bush we couldn’t see the track without lights (why do they paint pedals black anyway?). We rode in to Anakiwa just after 6pm

Riding details:

Plenty of water available along the way. Some maps have water stations marked. We all carried 2-3 litres. A map is very useful but not esential as it is well signposted. See the official web site www.qctrack.co.nz for more details. Two days was a reasonable amount of time, but do it in summer so there is a few more hours to enjoy that last long luscious 5-6 km cruise home at the end. A coker is too big, a 24" is too small unless you are mad keen on riding every uphill. We all rode 29ers. Rachel struggled with 127mm cranks, Steve rode 170mm and found them a bit long for the downhills, but otherwise good. Peter and Ken were always racing ahead on 152mm. So 152 or 170mm is fine.

We travelled light and carried everything we needed with us in a day pack. Having catered accommodation and clean sheets at night makes a big difference, but remember to take warm gear for the unpredictable weather during the day. Parts of the track are quite exposed.