Dublin Bay Bike Trip

On the afternoon of 17th October, Simon and I packed our lunch of lentil loaf sandwiches and ugly fruit and headed to Dublin Bay. On the map the red cross marks where I fell and the red circle our lunch place.

Our intention was to ride to Dublin Bay as a circuit. We headed out from the house and along Beacon Point Road as far as the fishermans access track at Penrith Park. A strong head wind from the lake and our morning Karate class meant that we were tired even by this small amount of road riding. Joining the lakeside track from Bremner Bay to the Outlet we pedalled along, getting stuck as usual in the sand and arrived hot and sweaty at the Outlet Motor Camp feeling as though we were being chased along the lake shore by the white capped waves of Lake Wanaka.

We had seen no other walkers or cyclists along the path so far but we passed a couple of walkers as we took the track from the Outlet to Albert Town. The track is narrower, undulating and sometimes precipitous and I managed to fall off my bike on a steep path. Luckily I only fell on my knees on the path rather than over the edge into the lake and a passing walker checked that I was okay. Simon and I had both taken our walkie-talkies so I was able to summon first aid. Sadly the first aid kit was at home but he washed the dirt out of the grazes for me. This picture taken at lunch time shows the graze on my right knee.

Once we had got to the end of the track it was back on the road for the ride through Albert Town and over the bridge towards Hawea. The bridge is just a one way bridge so we had the fun of trying to figure out if the oncoming traffic was really going to give way to us as cyclists even though the northbound traffic always has right of way on that bridge. After the bridge we only had a couple more miles on SH6 until the turn off onto Dublin Bay Road and back into our customary head wind.

It felt like uphill all the way. As we were cycling up the flow of the Clutha River to the lake I guess it actually was uphill. When we got to the lake we were almost the only people there. There was just one car parked down by the lake and the occupants were nowhere to be seen. We pedalled round the lakeside track for a short way until we found a good lunch spot. Unfortunately we could not find a place out of the wind and the temperature served as a reminder that it is not summer here yet at all.

Once our lunch was finished we were so cold that we had to start cycling again just to warm up but were too tired and hurt to do the loop track around the north side of the outlet and so we rode back past the farms and livestock of Dublin Bay Road to SH6 and then though Albert Town. After Albert Town we turned into Mount Iron Road and then headed home via Aubrey Road and Totara Terrace.