Misty Mountain Hop

Kia Ora Mates!

You’ll be arriv­ing into one of NZ’s sun­ni­est, art­sy fart­sy craft brew lov­ing towns, of beau­ti­ful Nel­son New Zealand. Home to the most epic Moun­tain Bik­ing — aka  IMBA Gold Sta­tus for Moun­tain Bik­ing. Ferns, gold­en beach­es, bike shops, cafes , and google Kiwiana lifestyle shine here mates. Welcome!

This after­noon we’ll meet up and go test our bikes out on some local Nel­son clas­sics, and grab a cold brew or two post ride.

Most of you will have arrived a day or two pri­or to set­tle in and recov­er from jet lag. 

Ris­ing ear­ly to the smell of fresh flat white cof­fees, we’ll be embark­ing on one of Nelson’s most clas­sic moun­tain bike tracks.

Here we’ll gear up and take on the local’s Cop­per­mine Sad­dle Track.  A grunt of a 1000 m climb, start­ing in pine trees, rid­ing through native bush and then ris­ing into the dry alpine with views across the Tas­man Bay. This ride is a real goodie!

The sweat and tears are all worth it for the flowy, red rock down­hill on the Fern Gul­ly Track!

We’ll hop in the riv­er for a swim to cool off, then ride back into Nel­son Town­ship for a cold craft brew in one of our favorite après ride hang outs. 

Since we will be locat­ed cen­tral­ly in Nel­son, we are sur­round­ed by some awe­some MTB trails in any direc­tion. Depend­ing on the group and the weath­er, your guides will choose the most appro­pri­ate back­coun­try trail today. Either ride is an hour or so away from Nel­son, and does require a local’s knowl­edge and logis­tics & transport. 

The Waka­ma­ri­na is an old gold min­ing trail, that’s techy and gnarly filled with heaps of stream cross­ings and fern gul­ly val­leys. Ride up to an old back­coun­try via a super workout.

 The Rame­ka Track is a super shut­tle assist grav­i­ty fed trail, that swoops down through a vari­ety of chang­ing ter­rain into the sweet sur­ren­der of Gold­en Bay. Ride and wash your wor­ries away.

After an ear­ly start, we’ll head west to the ghost town of Lyell and get ready for a good climb up part of the Old Ghost Road.

Here, we’re head­ing into New Zealand’s newest and epic back­coun­try sin­gle­tracks ever made.  We’ll ride up a well grad­ed incline of awe­some sin­gle­track, through mag­i­cal forests and alpine ridge lines of the wild west coast. The Old Ghost Road is NZ’s longest sin­gle­track, com­pris­ing of an impres­sive rugged 87 kms in total. Today, we’ll ride and enjoy a stun­ning part of it!

This after­noon, we’ll head over to the real wild west of New Zealand, and gear up to fly high in a heli­copter!  We’ll strap the bikes up and set off in style to the top of The Vic­to­ria Range to a sweet hut perched in pure beau­ty over­look­ing end­less ridge­lines of west coast wilder­ness at its finest! We’ll be on top of the world mates!

Please Note:  Weath­er and/or rid­ing abil­i­ties may dic­tate the heli-bike to be changed to the Croe­sus Track. Heavy rain does not allow us to chop­per up here. The heli-bik­ing expe­ri­ence requires all bikes to be strapped secure­ly to a rope that hangs under the chop­per in flight. Although the bikes are secured with care, it is like­ly for the bikes to shift dur­ing air trans­port and scratch­es to bike frames may hap­pen. If you are con­cerned with your bike get­ting scratched, you have the option of wrap­ping your bike with foam pads and duct tape. Rent­ing a bike through the add-ons tab is also an option. Sacred Rides is NOT respon­si­ble for scratch­es or dam­ages to bikes.

Ris­ing to the smell of fresh brewed cof­fee and great views, we’ll test our brakes out for our awe­some mis­sion ahead!

We’ll be enjoy­ing a 1100 m descent down the pre­mier Kir­wans Track. We’ll flow through stun­ning Beach tree and Fern Gul­ly forests on this epic tech­ni­cal descent! One of our all time fav’s, that screams adven­ture the whole way down. There’s  just noth­ing like it!

After our ride, we’ll hop in the shut­tle and dri­ve down the Grey Val­ley head­ing inland, up and over the South­ern Alps to the Craigieburn Forest.

Ris­ing to the high dry moun­tains, we’ll get back in the sad­dle for some epic rid­ing in Craigieburn Forest.

Tack­ling an uphill grav­el road to the bot­tom of Craigieburn Ski Field, we’ll take a short rest before head­ing down the well-named Edge trail which leads on to a track called “The Luge”.  After the Luge, a short uphill is fol­lowed by the new Dra­co­phyl­lum and  Hogs­back Track.  This is New Zealand’s sin­gle­track at its best mates… a real hoot — sweet sin­gle­track all the way!

We’ll rest our mus­cles as we dri­ve to the high dry McKen­zie Coun­try to the stun­ning turquoise waters of Lake Tekapo, also home to the clear­est skies in the world!

Wak­ing to the beau­ty and stun­ning land­scapes of the Macken­zie Coun­try, we’ve got an inspir­ing sin­gle­track ride to warm up with, in the heart of NZ’s  glaciat­ed peaks. It flows through native Tus­socks along with incred­i­ble views of the turquoise taint­ed Lake Tekapo. A real beau­ty to start the day with.

We’ll then move onto our secret gem of a ride which flows through the best alpine views the South Island has to offer.  Imag­ine rid­ing through NZ’s high­est peaks with MT Cook, sheep and  flow­ers on a super fun cross coun­try ride, end­ing with a cold beer (or two)! Oh yeah and a wee bit of sheep shit.

We’ll ride to our unique accom­mo­da­tion tonight — we’ll be stay­ing in a con­vert­ed shearer’s quar­ters with views to die for.  It doesn’t get more Kiwi than this mates!

Time to head South to some leg­endary sin­gle track in NZ’s dry rocky desert coun­try. This after­noon we’ll ride through some Thyme cov­ered hills, over rocky knol­ly ris­es and hid­den val­leys for a real hoot. You’ll feel like your in yet anoth­er dif­fer­ent coun­try, as you total­ly shift in gears and ter­rain. NZ deliv­ers yet again, straight to the fin­ish line mates!

Yes, that’s right, we’re head­ing to explore some  must-do rides in Queenstown!

Today, we’re up ear­ly for some local Kiwiana break­fast in town and a deli­cious flat white before head­ing to Coro­net Peak for some enduro style rides.

Start­ing with a good climb over­look­ing unre­al views of the Wakatipu Basin, we’ll then descent onto the famous Rude Rock track. Berms, swoops and pure fun on top of Queen­stown. Sweet As! We’ll do a few laps of this before con­nect­ing onto the adren­a­line pump­ing Skip­pers Canyon trail. A good climb out and onto a grand finale trail that takes us all the way to Arrow­town for a well deserved finale brew… high ‑fives all around  — need we say more?

Final morn­ing, your guides will be offer­ing air­port trans­fers or bag drop off to your hotel in Queenstown.