Friday, June 29, 2007

Queen Charlotte Track Jun 12-15

My apologies for this completely haphazard post, and the complete lack there of for the past few weeks. Exams just finished Saturday, and for the past few weeks I've been struggling to fit in as much mountain biking, studying, and savoring of my final days in this great city as humanly possible.

Below are the pictures from a 4 day trip up to the Marlborough Sounds at the top of the South Island. Here's the basic gist. Narv and I went up to Picton, a tiny little town nestled at the innermost nook of the Queen Charlotte Sound. The following day we loaded our bikes on a boat and traveled an hour to the end of the sound. We began our 66k journey back to civilization in a lonely cove once used as a place of refuge by Captain Cook when he explored this part of the world. Its since been largely unchanged. Over the next two days we rode over some spectacular single track, crossing two roads, the back yards of a few secluded resorts and homesteads, and saw less than a dozen people.
Our first day (4hrs) was highlighted with brilliant sky's, but a nasty wreck early in the day on my part. The trail never challenged us with much in the way of technically demanding features, just lots of climbing and some slippery mud in places. Nonetheless, the cruisy trail had a few tricks up its sleeve for the inattentive. The crash soured the first few hours, but eventually the views and the amazing trail healed my aches and pains.
The second day, (6hrs) we rode under, and for a while within a gray sky, however, clouds nor misty rain could take away from the experience.

Day one Bus CHCH-Picton














Day 2 Ship Cove to Camp Bay
































Day Three Camp Bay-Anikiwa






















Day 4
Picton-CHCH



















I wish I could have organized these photos and provided a few captions, but I anticipated having more time to kill. Instead however I'll be taking off on Monday with some friends for two weeks of tramping and adventuring around the south island before finally coming back to chch to catch my flight to LA on the 13th. I'll be back in Vermont late on the 19th.

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