William Pike Challenge BIke Trails
On Wednesday the 26th of May, Room 8 went on two Wilderness trails for William Pike challenge to the Mananui Tramline and Hurunui Jacks wilderness trails. We had to be at school by 8:30am to have time to load up the bike and have a talk about the direction to get there. My car group was Matt, Robyn, Charlie, Shannon and I, while my compass group was Me and Sam. We left school at around 9 O’clock in the morning and arrived at the Mananui Tramline track at about 10 to 10.
Mananui Tramline
Mananui Tramline track is located around 8 km South of Hokitika. It took about 15 minutes to get all of the bikes unloaded and to get ready for the track.
Each compass group had to find the bearing of where we were riding to. After every group had found the bearing we left the car park and started the track. Mrs Kemp let the class on the track one or two people at a time so that the group wasn't too bunched up!
There had pretty much been frost on either side of the track for the first 10 minutes. There were plenty of slim slippery wooden bridges with some that don’t have rails. As we rode over the neverending bridge we looked down and noticed the swampy water had a thin layer of ice on it.
Unfortunately I was stuck in my highest gear since on the day before the bike rides my bike stopped changing gears. I forgot my Jersey and left it in the car. After 10 minutes of riding the group had stopped to gather up together so we could all ride together.
We had another stop at the picnic point and by this point the icy cold wind was making everyone's hands freeze up. For me it made it hard to keep a grip. We made it to the other side and then we made it back through the Wilderness trail. That took around about an hour and a half.
Hurunui Jacks
Before we went to Hurunui Jacks Trail we had to go and get a petrol stop. The class all finally made it to the Hurunui Jacks Wilderness Trail. This track was a lot more intense for riding. It was mostly intense uphill which rapidly tired me out. We were huffing and puffing on the uphill. There was one hill which not many people made it up and I was right at the top when I got too tired and had to stop since I was stuck in my highest gear.
This ride took about 50 minutes to get to the halfway point where we saw Donna at the other end. Some riders that didn’t have much experience on a bike left with Donna to meet us back at the starting car park.
On the way back there was a fast group which went fast with a handful of adults. The four adults that wanted to go fast got a 20 second head start. Me and Noah got to go first out of the kids. Kade, James and Kayden caught up to us and I let Noah, Kayden, Kade and James go past me because they were going faster than me. We all got past Nadia (Breanna’s Mum) because she stopped to let us go by since she didn’t like the downhill as much! The boys in front of me skyrocketed ahead and caught up to Craig, Flynn’s Dad. Tim and Matt were the only people who beat a few incredibly quick riders!
We waited for the group to catch up when we got to a shelter, which was at the top of the big steep hill. Once the group caught up the fast riders left! I didn’t realise and I had a big catch up to do. I caught up because we stopped at a little creek crossing that we had to cross. They were on the other side of the freezing cold creek! I was flying and when I splashed across the creek, my knobly front tyre got caught in between two smooth rocks and I went Crash! Boom! And fell off. “Ouch!” I said.
We all carried on and made it to the end of the Wilderness Trail! It was a very fun ride and it was 20 past 2 when we had loaded all of our bikes up and headed home!
