13/06/2026
Mount Fyffe Mission day 2
I'd had the idea of hiking the 3km to the summit of Mt Fyffe to watch the sunrise and set an alarm accordingly. Then as I rolled my weary body over in bed and was almost asleep I suddenly thought "What the hell am I thinking? That's 6km return on a stupidly steep track that gets rougher from here, in the dark. Not my idea of fun." I reset my alarm to go off just before sunrise which I'd happily watch from the hut thank you very much. I slept like a log and woke to the alarm and also voices outside the hut. A couple of boys had hiked up and were talking smack loudly nearby, which stopped quickly when I appeared out of the hut and gave them the evils. They went off up the hill and I soon realized the sun was rising behind Mt Fyffe. D'oh.
Instead of the sunrise itself I looked out to the south and watched as the golden light slowly painted the hills, then the sun went behind a cloud. I went back and lay in my sleeping bag in peace for a while until a steady stream of people started arriving, having hiked or biked up from the carpark. Bloody morning people. Eventually I got up and slowly had breakfast while packing and cleaning up the hut. It drizzled a couple of times so I waited until the sky looked reliably blue again before finally leaving. I passed a steady stream of hikers coming up who thankfully let me hold my line downhill, because it took all my concentration to keep the bike on the smoothest path while gripping the brakes tightly to keep the speed down. It was a hell of a lot quicker going down than up, though I had to stop quite a few times to rest my braking fingers and let the brakes themselves cool off a bit.
Near the lookout at the top of the Kaiterau Trail I ran into Alex, who had run slash power hiked up from the bottom, taking the steep 4WD track all the way! He ran up to the hut and back which he's done a couple times before too. What a machine. I rode down the Kaiterau Trail, where the downhill section is curiously rated a grade higher than the uphill even though it's a loop. It was near the limit of my comfort zone with a loaded bike and some of the corners were a bit beyond it. These trail builders sure love steep tight corners! It got better as I went and soon I was back on the road and flew down to a spot where Alex had parked up. I was so glad to be down the hill. After all the brake gripping my fingers barely worked as I tried to unclip my gear and unload the bike.
I had a couple hours break during which my sister Kerstin visited on her way north to Picton, then Sarah from Christchurch showed up. She happened to be here for the weekend and I had suggested she ride out to meet me then we ride the rest of the Kaikoura Trail together. So that we did, at quite a pace because it was already mid afternoon. We did stop for a quick game of ladybugs and bumblebees and also checked out a wee dead end section of the Whale Trail that's under construction. We rolled back into Kaikoura around sunset and after a much needed shower and some dinner I went round to Sarah's campground where I got to share a hot tub soak with her and her friends. The best way to finish what felt like a big effort even though it wasn't that much distance 🥰
