TRAVERSE 117
TRAVEL - NEW ZEALAND
LEIGH WILKINS
OH GOOD , GRAVEL !
There it was , a long thin ribbon of grey , stretching out into the distance , a perfectly good dirt track covered in what seemed to be knee deep gravel . Of course , it wasn ’ t that deep but something in my pea sized brain was telling me it was , ironic since the Kiwi I was riding with kept referring to the crushed grey stone as “ pea gravel ”, for reason that had become apparent .
We were on the second to last day of a ride through the majesty of New Zealand ’ s south island and there stretched the gravel , for some reason getting in my head that it was evil , wanting to drag a rider to their doom . Of course , it does , but bloody hell , it ’ s just another surface to be traversed and for some reason I was struggling with it .
It had started on the first day . We ’ d left the port town of Picton on the shores of Queen Charlotte Sound and headed southeast along the Richmond Range , a region famous for its wineries . This had led us to one of New Zealand ’ s most iconic tracks , the Rainbow Station Road ( or the Rainbow-Hanmer Road ), a privately owned road that stretches through the Boddington Range and is generally only open for four months during the southern hemispheres summer season .
The initial section had been great , winding , rocky , technical with the occasional river crossing thrown in . Easy ! The sort of track I like . Yet , within minutes of paying our toll at roughly the halfway point , the old accommodation house , we were thrown into a world of gravel .
Now I don ’ t think I ’ m exaggerating when I say that this stuff is like a dance floor covered with glass marbles on a boozy Saturday night . The Yamaha I was riding wanted to go one way , my body felt like it needed to move in the opposite direction , and somewhere in between my head was questioning
TRAVERSE 117