![\"Leaving](\"https:\/\/cris.lovell-smith.com\/trips\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Leaving-Brown-Hut-MTB-Heaphy-Oct-2020-scaled.jpg\" "\\"Leaving")
<\/a>![\"On](\"https:\/\/cris.lovell-smith.com\/trips\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/On-the-first-ascent-MTB-Heaphy-Oct-2020-1-scaled.jpg\" "\\"On")
<\/a>![\"Track](\"https:\/\/cris.lovell-smith.com\/trips\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Track-MTB-Heaphy-Oct-2020-1-scaled.jpg\" "\\"Track")
<\/a>![\"More](\"https:\/\/cris.lovell-smith.com\/trips\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/More-track-MTB-Heaphy-Oct-2020-1-scaled.jpg\" "\\"More")
<\/a><\/p>\n1) I set off from Brown Hut in the morning. All smiles. Pretty much.<\/p>\n
2) The track is mostly smooth and wide like all great walks are.<\/p>\n
3) The track climbs steadily to Perry Saddle.<\/p>\n
4) More track.<\/p>\n
I followed the track as it wound it\u2019s way down from the saddle and onto the flat tussock lands. The descent was quick as the track had turned to a smooth sandy highway. The Gouland Downs hut is an older thing that\u2019s been painted in red and green and looks great. It was packed full of hikers eating lunch so I continued on to Saxon Hut, just 5 km away. The weather had deteriorated somewhat. It had turned grey and windy. I ate my lunch in the hut and got back on my bike.<\/p>\n
I thought I\u2019d head on towards the next hut and if the weather were still good drop my stuff and go for a ride further along the track. Unfortunately as I rode across a bridge I did a silly thing. I was faffing around with my GoPro on my handlebars trying to record the bridge crossing. I clipped the wall at the side of the track over compensated and rode\/fell off the side of the track to the left. It was a bit of a drop and it could have been unpleasant but I wasn\u2019t at all hurt. After lifting my bike back onto the track I discovered the front brakes were jammed on and then shortly after I discovered I\u2019d put a whole in the sidewall of my back tyre. The goo inside the wheels was struggling to patch the hole.<\/p>\n
1) From Perry Saddle I descended towards the Gouland Downs, a flat scrubby tableland.<\/p>\n 2) The Gouland Downs Hut is a pretty old style hut that sleeps 8 people. I took a peak into the crowded hut and then continued on my way.<\/p>\n 3) There are a bunch of streams and rivers running across the downs.<\/p>\n 4) It was still sunny as I made my way towards Saxon Hut.<\/p>\n 5) View out across the plains.<\/p>\n 6) Oh, oh, disaster strikes. A moment of inattention cost me an hour of bike repairs.<\/p>\n It took about an hour for me to unlock the brakes and put a tube in the back tyre. By this stage the weather was looking not so good and I decided just to try and get to James Mackay Hut. My brakes were jamming again as I rode the last few km in the first spots of rain. The hut was big and spacious and had a fire going in the corner. I met a bunch of nice people and we spent the evening chatting away.<\/p>\n Due to the weather and bike status and forecast for Sunday I bailed on Saturday morning and rode back the way I came in the cold and rain. There had apparently been snow at Perry Saddle in the night but it had all melted by the time I got there. After stopping at Saxon Hut to warm up my socks on the fire and grab a bite to eat I decided to carry on at Perry Saddle rather than stop. I bumped down the track passing people heading out on bikes for the weekend. It was dry but grey at the car and I bundled my muddy wet gear into the car and drove back to Nelson.<\/p>\n 1) It was a cold and wet ride out but it was unpleasant as I was climbing enough to keep warm.<\/p>\n 2) There was some mist during the descent to Brown Hut but it cleared as I got lower. The mud remained though. There were people walking and riding up the track. I wonder what they will think of the worsening weather.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I set off for a three day mountain biking trip of the Heaphy Track. I had planned to start on the Golden Bay side and cycle through to the Karamea end and then return again by bike. The weather didn\u2019t play nice and I cut the trip to two days but it was still enjoyable. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,249,69,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-kahurangi-national-park","category-mountain-biking","category-new-zealand","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cris.lovell-smith.com\/trips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cris.lovell-smith.com\/trips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cris.lovell-smith.com\/trips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cris.lovell-smith.com\/trips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cris.lovell-smith.com\/trips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24272"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cris.lovell-smith.com\/trips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24776,"href":"https:\/\/cris.lovell-smith.com\/trips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24272\/revisions\/24776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cris.lovell-smith.com\/trips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cris.lovell-smith.com\/trips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cris.lovell-smith.com\/trips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n