Blairich Station is a bit over 3,000 hectares. Ten riders saw a fair part of the property and a lot of surrounding country from high view-points (highest at 980 m asl) today in fantastic weather.
There were some great moments. Ieva from Latvia showed the boys how to ride both up and down hill on an older bike with no suspension! Justine (the younger) and Eugan got their new bikes dirty – shame really. Justin Kenward and Sarnim Dean decided to ride to the start from Blenheim. Paid for it by joining the ‘pushing the bikes’ group on parts of the 800m climb. They then scrounged a ride back to town with Jason. New-comer Rob rode nearly all the hill after recovering from an early puncture. Denise had minor mechanical issues and did a bit of mumbling about getting her bike serviced before the next ride.
The organiser’s navigation skills were questioned several times when there was yet even more ‘up’. Early on he had said we had to go past a big rock that was visible high on the skyline – just forgot to mention there were several big rocks to go past. There was a short debate about turning back after a k of the first decent down-hill turned into another ‘up’ and it was clear we would not be back in town by 1pm. Quote of the day at this point came from Peter Webster “Well there is still nine hours of daylight left.” We carried on.
We finally got the big down-hill and stopped for another lunch at the Willows Hut which is an old well maintained cob hut in a marvellous location. A short stiff (at that time of the ride) climb got us over a small saddle for a mostly down-hill ride back to the cars at 2.15pm at with 24k of travel under the wheels. Another great outing in my view and I’m not biased!
Thanks to Ron and Sue Small and family for access.
Kevin Wilson
