It will come as a surprise to hear it was cold. Off we went up the road towards Mataura, wearing everything I own and feeling as mobile as the Michelin man and looking quite similar.
Now take a seat. We got to the track to discover that it too was closed. It’s getting beyond a joke. Logging again. You would think we were having a housing crisis the way the are felling trees. This time I knew they wouldn’t be logging the riverbed which is where our track went so we snuck through. After a brief tour of the forest due to a wrong turn we found our track. Behind a padlocked gate. Cover the childrens eyes for a moment. For fucks sake!
Apparently due to extreme fire risk which is a little surprising as it’s greener than I have ever seen it and there are puddles of water everywhere. I watched my mates take a surprisingly long time to reach the obvious conclusion. We were not going further. Dave Mac tends not to give up easily so he was plotting all sorts of things including going to every farm house in Southland until he found a key. Eventually we did head back. The view east along the Mataura towards the morning sun was worth the trip so I was happy.
The picture is below. It’s included for the 2 Dave’s who were so busy ranting at things inside thier heads try didn’t notice.
From there we did a road ride along lake Wakatipu. It was very beautiful in the still crisp air that already has quite an autumnal feel to it. Dashing through the Queenstown where the traffic was jamming, even without the foreign tourists. Lots of self aggrandising people in big vehicles who confused money with success. Karma.
We hummed off to plan B, the Carricktown track, behind Bannockburn. This track starts in the ruined gold mine town of, you guessed it, Carricktown. It cris crosses a 34km water race that brought water to power the battery stampers over 100 years ago. For the time it was a marvel of engineering, dug with pick and shovel. How they got the fall right without lasers I don’t know. It was a big job. I’ve dug shitty little trenches in my garden and that was too much. So we learnt that even back then people would do an incredibly pointless amount of work for money. Now the water race is used for irrigation so they inadvertently did something useful!
The track was quite a challenge climbing steeply up the hill with some unexpected Erzberg enduro sections. Lots of fun was had and lots of sweat was lost. Little coffee stop at the top, a stones throw from where we joined the Nevis yesterday, and then back down. With the assistance of gravity the descent was easier and great fun.
Off through Cromwell and north towards Tarras and then across the Dunstan range on the Thompson Gorge track. This track runs through Thompson gorge. Yes I jest.
We took a little detour and surprised a few modern gold diggers who clearly aren’t aware that the new gold is TikTok.
Fun descent down the other side and onwards to the old town of St Bathans, with its unique Blue lake and artificial geology created by gold sluicing. It’s very photogenic.
To my horror the place was full of very manly motorcyclists. If you are confused, we are not very manly motorcyclists. Well with the exception of Dave Mac. Anyway, we waded through the testosterone and bravado to collect our own little beer which we drank in a quiet sunny spot while Dave Lear threw a ball for the local dog. 
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