We were parked up on a friend’s property at the end of the airstrip on Lauder Station for a few days.
This was the perfect opportunity to ride into the Lauder Basin Conservation Area. DOC manages along the top of the Dunstan Range and an access corridor runs through Lauder Station. We had last attempted this in July and it was very slippery with mud and deep boggy areas that we had to try and navigate. We had only managed to get to 879 metres, hopefully we would have more success this time. We did a 12km warm up ride the day before up a ridge parallel to the access track riding up to 1000m. The next morning, we woke early to a chilly 3 degrees and prepared to embark on our ride. As you can see below we had a steep 11km uphill climb ahead.
We zig zagged up the hill navigating the hairpin turns up the farm track. Brent is a machine on a bike and powered his way up. I needed a couple of stops to catch my breath, give my legs some respite and let my heart rate ease up. Looking down at the caravan it was so small.
We made it to the saddle, when looking back over the valley the views were breathtaking. We turned right and continued up the track heading towards the top. The track was now a lot rockier and trickier to navigate.
We made it to the highest point at 1647m where we took some time to eat a bit of breakfast. We were above the clouds and literally felt on top of the world.
As we headed back down it was literally bone shaking. We had to keep our wits about us to avoid large rocks, deep ruts and ensure we didn’t go too fast and end up over the steep sides.
I’m not sure what was more difficult cycling up the steep hill or tackling the descent which needed brakes for most of the way. My arms were so sore by the time we reached the bottom.
We both managed to survive the ride with no injuries. This is definitely not a ride for the faint hearted. I still can’t really believe I actually did it, riding the whole way and not having to get off and push. The total ride was 26.1kms with a moving time of 2:15 hours and an elevation gain of 12.39 metres.
I honestly couldn’t rave enough about our Moustache e-mountain bikes. They have never let us down and handle the tough rocky conditions with ease. This by far is our greatest biking achievement and most definitely a day we will never forget. We will at some point in the future head around to the Tarras side of the range and ride in from there to meet up with where we got to this time.
This 4WD track is open to vehicles however no motor bikes or quad bikes are allowed on the farm easement. A permit is required from DOC for 4WD access. No access is allowed between 8pm and 7am. Access through Lauder Station is closed for all users due to lambing from 20 September and the Thursday prior to Labour weekend.
Alfie was happy to see us when we got back and was ready to relax in the sun for the day.
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