Cycling the St James Trail

When we started this blog we thought it’d be mainly about adventures big and small.  But it’s funny how the content has turned out to be mainly about sustainability.  Who knew that would happen!?  Certainly not us. 

But at last here’s one about a big ol’ adventure that we had that’s doable by most, if you are into cycling. It’s from a while back and it was the first multi-day mountain bike adventure I’d ever been on. 

Like almost all adventures it started with poring over maps. For us it also involved hunting on the internet for things to do in the upper South Island.  We were heading down to the South Island from Wellington to do a regular road cycling event called the Graperide.  The plan was to tag on some days after the event, taking advantage of the cheap ferry crossings that came with the Graperide entry.

We love the planning stage of an adventure, and the cool thing is that we’re both very flexible and open to ideas as to what to do. We’ve also found that the thing we first come up with usually changes a whole heap before we actually hit the road. Mostly it’s about paring things down to the essence of what we want to achieve and more importantly, what we can afford.  

This time we had a week, so we were going to fit a few things in besides this mountain bike trip. Straight after the Graperide we headed to Nelson to visit an old friend of G’s, drove down the west coast to the Pancake rocks at Punakaiki, then over Arthurs Pass to Craigiburn for a day of mountain biking and caving (the mountain biking was abandoned halfway through due to freezing weather, but the caving, through Cave Stream, we highly recommend http://www.castlehill.net.nz/castlehill/cavestream/cavestream.php). We then drove north again and checked out the earthquake ravaged country in Kaikoura. We’d planned to go whale watching but again, the weather thwarted us. So, it was back over the inland road called the Whale’s Back and to HanmerSprings, where this adventure started.

The St James Cycle Trail

Neither of us knew much about this trail, somehow it was off our radar of things to do or places to visit. 

The trail isn’t a loop but kinda three sides of a rectangle.  We decided to make it a loop and ride the other rectangle side as well – ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’.   So, we headed north from Hanmer Springs, over the gravel road of Jacks Pass, to the old St James Homestead, which is actually the finish of the trail, though we made it our starting point and basecamp.  Here we parked up the car and pitched our tent.  

It was freezing cold in the night and Glynis really struggled to keep warm…  and the tent was covered with ice in themorning.  We were in alpine country andit was letting us know! 

The plan was to leave the car and our tent pitched there and ride north to the start of the trail. The first day we’d make our way up Tophouse Road to the start of the trail at the Maling Pass carpark, then over the pass and round to Lake Guyon.  This made the second day riding from Lake Guyon back to the Homestead.  We knew we were in for a couple of long days.    

Day 1.  St James Homestead to Lake Guyon. 45 km and 763m of climbing. 

With the freezing cold start to the day it took us a while to get moving.  We weren’t in a campground, just the old homestead grounds, but we figured we’d save time by leaving the tent up while we were gone. It’s a pretty remote area and we figured it’d be fine (and it was).  There was an issue with Glynis’s bike in that one of the brackets for her front carrier was missing a bolt and we didn’t have a spare.  I was a bit of a panic merchant and thought we might be stuffed before we started, but Glynis said “bugger” and then calmly went about fashioning a very serviceable jury rig using ingenuity and cable ties. There was a lesson for me here…

It’s 25km of gravel up the stunning upper Clarence River valley to the start of the trail.  It tracked uphill, but pretty gently, all the way to the trailhead. We stopped a few times to rejig things on both bikes and to grab a bite alongside the river.

The scenery had us gobsmacked – and we hadn’t even got to the truly spectacular parts yet.  It was a good feeling after all the planning and prep, to get underway. A quick stop at the official start of the trail then we were off the road and onto a four-wheel drive track to the top of Maling Pass.  It was a bit of a grunt up the climb, especially with a loaded bike, but the view at the summit was simply amazing.

The descent into the majestic and spectacular Waiau River valley was some steep and rocky fun and we soon came to the end of the 4wd track and were in the remotest part of the trail on a single track. We were just starting to feel the pinch of a long day when we got to the turn-off for Lake Guyon and made it to the empty hut, happily toasted.  

A quick dip in the lake had us nicely refreshed but the mozzies were bloody hungry buggers and we had to be incredibly fast getting covered again after our swim. While we were cooking and eating dinner Glynis was getting bitten through three layersof clothing and endless sprayings of Dimp.

We’d decided against sleeping in the hut (which was pretty small and not the flashest) opting instead for our double bivvy bag (The Uber Bivvy) under the stars. As soon as we’d finished up after dinner, we got in the bivvy and zipped up the mozzie net to be finally safe from those nasty buggers. All zipped up in our sleeping bags at about 6pm!

I’d like to report that I slept like a log but, sadly, I’m finding it tough to get a good night’s sleep whenever we’re camping somewhere. I need to find a good mattress solution. Glynis, on the other hand, seems, maddingly, to usually fall asleep within seconds and wakes up refreshed. This time though, I’m not sure she had a great night either, with us decamping in the early hours to the hut as it was freezing cold again.  

Day 2. Lake Guyon to St James Homestead. 45km and 945m of climbing.

Thankfully the mozzies had gone in the morning, so it was a really nice breakfast with spectacular views and the mountains mirrored in the lake. We soon got back to the main trail and were heading south on the single trail down the Waiau valley. We were in for another cracker of a day, the only thing slowing us down being the frequent photo stops; every which way we looked there was a spectacular vista. 

We stopped for lunch just before the first of a few purpose-built cycle trail swing bridges. The climb out of the gorge after crossing the bridge was a very long switch back and looking up at the trail above us I figured we could save some time, and considerable distance, by going cross-country, through some smooth grassland, to the upper trail, which was “just there” … A quick consult with G and we decided we’d give it a go.

Well as the old adage goes; “A shortcut is the longest distance between two points”. The lovely smooth grassland turned out to be heavily rutted and tough going, and the distance, which looked small before we set out, seemed to be ever increasing.  But we made it, with rueful shrugs😊.  

Once we’d crested this climb out of the gorge we had some great riding down to Pool Hut. This section is rated as Grade 4 which should be really challenging for us, but we found it flowing and our favourite part of the ride. We figured that the remoteness of this section might have contributed to the grading. 

Certainly, after Pool hut it got tougher, with a hill that Glynis dubbed “Horrible Hill!” causing the rare event of G losing her sense of humour. The rocks up Horrible Hill were large, riding was impossible and pushing the bikes really difficult. But we made it and after a brief pause at the top, G regained her composure and we got moving again. 

There was a good climb out of Waiau valley to the Charles Saddle and onto the final Easterly heading track along the Edwards river. We both found this section really tough going and were pretty knackered when we stopped briefly at Scotties Hut, and at that point we still had a long haul to go. It should have been easier as we were back onto a four-wheel drive track, but we found it really energy sapping. Luckily the spectacular scenery kept giving us something to keep our minds off how knackered we were. 

It was big relief to get to the top of Peters Pass, the last big effort of the trail, and we knew the last 5km were an easy and flowing downhill through the Peters Valley. That downhill run was the perfect way to finish. The light was perfect, we were riding easy, tracking downhill and feeling bloody good.

We arrived back at base camp and were welcomed by another couple we’d seen and talked to several times over the last few days (they were doing day rides). They knew our plans and that we should be back sometime that afternoon/evening and had readied their solar shower for us to use. It’s these small acts of kindness by near complete strangers that fills your heart on these adventures. Funnily, we rigged up the solar shower at the back of the homestead and were in the middle of al fresco showering when a car full of people drove past.  G was left hiding behind a flannel 😊.

We stayed the night again at the homestead and managed to get a better night’s sleep (G finally found a way to get warm) and decamped to Hanmer the next morning for an amazing café breakfast (G still raves about the porridge). We spent the entire day in the hot pools that Hanmer is famous for, finally leaving early evening, a bit shrivelled but well rested and content.

We loved every minute of the trip, though in hindsight I think we’d have done better spreading it over three days instead of two. I’m most used to the distance you can travel on a road bike, so two 45km days didn’t sound that hard. When you mix in the weight and the terrain however, it makes for hard days. In saying that though, shared hardship brings you together, and you sure earn your rest afterwards, making it all the more sweet.  

If you haven’t been to this part of the world we totally, totally, totally recommend it. What an amazing ride.

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