its way up to the old town and school
house at Skippers Point.
A snack, a wander about the histor-
ic buildings, and we hopped back on
our bikes and raced into Queenstown
for a cold and frothy beer. If you’re
in the area and have a hankering for
beautiful views and getting your heart
racing, I highly suggest this track!
Between some advice from David
and the excellent details at Remote-
moto.com the next day I ripped off to
tackle the Nevis Road from Garston to
Gibbston … which turned out to be a
much bigger challenge than I antici-
pated. Having read some posts from
people who had ridden it in the last
couple of days saying the river cross-
ings were minimal and the road in
good condition, I missed that despite
being dry overnight in Queenstown it
had rained and snowed in the moun-
tains turning the dirt track to mud and
raising the river levels.
My ride started full of confidence
as turning off the highway to climb a
good quality gravel track up the Car-
rick mountain range to 1300m with
a stop beside an old ski club hut and
views out across the Otago lakes and
mountains. Heading across the top
of the range with snow appearing be-
side the track the nice gravel made a
transition to extremely slippery frosty
TRAVERSE 30
mud for the descent into the Nevis …
where all the river crossings began.
Starting with a couple of small
fords to bring up the confidence and
continuing through a long creek bed
before the track condition degraded
until I got myself buried to the rear
axle in mud. After an hour of trying
to get out with my mind more and
more coming around to the idea that
I may be stuck here for the night, I got
enough of a reed covered track dug in
front of Robin to climb out of the mud
in time to cross another stream (I be-
lieve there was about 27 crossings to-
tal) where the track condition began to
improve. The rest of the way through