Micro S24O - Kakepuku

I'd been thinking, planning and dreaming about bike packing for the past year or so. Looking for places I could ride to from home had left me with very few options, most of them not very exciting or attractive. I wanted somewhere a little bit out of the way where I'd be unlikely to run into or be discovered by anyone else. Megan had expressed an interest in coming with me and we'd spent the winter researching and buying the gear we needed.

I decided that a trip out to overnight on Kakepuku would be an ideal test for our equipment and us. It's only 10km from Te Awamutu, so after parking my car at my parents place I met up with Megan at 5pm and we rolled out of town.

Heading for the hill

The wind had picked up and was quite gusty with a headwind to push through on our way out. That was the easy part. We arrived at the Kakepuku track carpark and took in the information on the sign board. It didn't say "no camping" so my fears of being busted for illegal camping were immediately dissolved. From here it was uphill all the way on the "mountain bike track". The grassy 4WD track was pretty easy to negotiate on our burdened bikes.  This was the first time we'd been offroad with loads. The bike felt heavier, fell into hollows with more of a bump, and felt like it needed to be steered a lot more to keep on track, rather than leaning the bike over.

Loaded bikes at the info board in the carpark

Pretty good views and only about 1/3 of the way up the track

More view

Pretty soon the incline got the better of me and I opted to walk.  It wasn't too much further up the track that I realised we would probably be pushing our bikes most of the way up.  I figured the only way to get there was to keep going.  I was excited.  This was what I had been looking forward to for ages - going camping, with bike.  Not the usual kind of thing to do; most mums would take a night away from the family to hit the town with a girlfriend - I was getting out of town.

Not Megan's favourite bit

We could really only ride for a short distance before we ran out of legs, or the gradient tipped up and we lost traction.  The track was deteriorating.  Two large channels had been carved out by the wheels of the offroad truck used to maintain and enhance the reserve.  The mud got thicker, the track got steeper, the rocks bumped us off course and our wheels slid in the mud.  More pushing.  Megan had gone quiet.  I was forging ahead.  I just wanted to get to the top and set up camp.  We'd passed a little grass flat a while back and Megan attempted to reason that we should go back and camp there.  Nah.

I don't think Megan was impressed that I was so keen to carry on through the horrible conditions, knowing that we would return this way tomorrow morning and would have to walk down too. Our tyres were big brown donuts by now, packed with mud and useless at providing any traction.

Part way into a steep pitch Megan suggested I go on to the top and text her to tell her what was up there.  Right then!  I headed up and found the track flattened off, dried out, and was quite sheltered between the trees.  After texting Megan ("Big push with flat at top, could camp here. You coming up?" ... not exactly the words of encouragement she may have been looking for), I walked back down the track to meet her.  She wasn't a picture of happiness, but at least she was pushing her bike up the hill.  At the top we rode on a little further and found we had reached the end of the trail.  We made it!  There was a trail branching off to the right and connecting to a long set of stairs going further up the mountain. (I have no idea why, but we didn't even bother going for a walk to check out what was up there.)  We found a nice flat area on the track and set up camp.

Yup, sleeping in the wheel tracks!

Dinner "cooking"

Now we could finally test out our gear.  The tents went up in a jiffy - mine a single person, single pole tent and Megan's more of an oversized bivvy with a hoop at each end.  Mats and bags were laid out and it was time for dinner!  Megan had pre-packed tuna and rice, so ripped the top off the pot and was straight into it.  I had brought along the alcohol stove I had made and hoped it would be able to boil the water for my dehydrated meal.  I'd tried the stove out a few times at home, but found the wind and low temperatures made it work very hard.  I cleared a patch of leaf litter and set up the wind shield.  We were quite sheltered from the prevailing wind, but occasionally a bit of breeze got funnelled along the track and through our camp.  I poured a good 40mls of methylated spirits into the stove and checked that everything was sturdy with the pot in place.  After lighting it, I waited for the stove to get hot and the jets to light.  Unfortunately I hadn't waited long enough and the pot soon snuffed out the stove.  After re-lighting and waiting a little longer, the stove was in full swing.  By the time the water started to boil, Megan had finished her dinner.  I still had an agonising 10 minutes to wait before the dehydrated meal was rehydrated and "cooked".  Some people hate the dehydrated food, but you really need to try it for yourself.  I find it perfectly palatable and it is so easy to carry (just cram it in your bag - no fear of squashing or breaking anything.  The hot food did a lot to warm me up and I was soon ready to crawl into bed, though not before a dessert of a Dark Ghana Sante bar.

Before dinner I had changed into my skins leggings, an icebreaker 150 top and a lightweight polar fleece jersey.  Keeping my socks on, I slid into my bag and tried to get comfortable.  I was lying on about a 5 degree cross-slope, so it made sleeping facing "downhill" a bit strange.  I found my happy place and snuggled down.  There wasn't much noise in the bush, but I opted to wear earplugs anyway... if I can't hear it, I won't be wondering what's making that noise!  (Though that didn't prevent my imagination running wild and scenes from Blair Witch Project (don't look it up) running through my head at some ungodly hour).

About 2 hours prior to overheating

I drifted off to sleep sometime after 9:30pm, only to wake 2 hours later boiling hot!  I had already taken off the fleece jersey to roll up and use as a pillow (fail - more testing required to find a suitable improvised pillow... otherwise I'm going to have to buy a packable one), so I had to resort to unzipping my bag for half an hour or so to drop my temperature.  That hot food was doing it's job.  I never got cold all night and after zipping up my bag again I slept quite well.

Morning light

Morning skies

Breakfast in (on?) bed

Morning dawned and I resisted.  I pulled my sleeping bag up over my eyes and snoozed a bit longer.  About 6:45am I decided it was time to get going as I could hear light rain on the tent fly.  I was in no hurry though, and thought it was entirely appropriate to have breakfast in bed.  I had muesli with peaches which was super yum, even without milk and yoghurt.  Megan had an OSM and a Red Bull and broke camp lightning fast, leaving me to catch up.

Damp skies

Sun peaking through

I had a banana and reloaded my gear onto my bike.  The dry bag fit onto the Freeload rack perfectly with the clip of the dry bag done up around the seatpost and held down with a couple of Q-Spear bungies.  My tent strapped across my handlebars and sat there pretty well with the help of a Q-Spear bungy to stop it bouncing around.  I had plenty of room in my backpack for my small bundle of clothes and the 3 litre camelbak bladder.  With everything in its place I set off down the mountain.  Well, I rode for a few hundred metres before I had to get off and walk again.  And that's how I got down the top third of the mountain: ride, walk/run, slide, dance around the edge of a mud bog, push to a clear piece of track, repeat.  I caught up to Megan at the halfway mark where we got back on our bikes and rode down the grassy 4WD track to the bottom.  It felt good to get back on the road and pedal our bikes.  We rode around the mountain (into that stiff headwind) and took the slightly longer way home.

After seemingly flagging at pushing her bike up the mountain yesterday, Megan had recovered and  flew off ahead of me up all the hills (Red Bull gives you wiiiings!), while it was my turn to trail behind.  We rolled back into TA at about 9am.  With a brief exchange of thanks and a promise of "more adventures, next time" we parted ways.

Micro adventure

That was my first experience of S24O, or a bike packing overnighter.  I was away from home for a total of 17 hours.  It wasn't a huge ride, or a massive adventure, but that's not what this is about for me.  I'm really grateful for Megan's company, I'm pleased I did it, and I want to do more.  My gear worked perfectly (even the homemade stove), and I'm looking forward to refining what I take and what I leave behind as I get more experienced.  Where to next?