Another Busy Weekend

This weekend X-Air came to Wellington. Some of the top BMX, skateboard, and freestyle motocross riders from NZ and around the world showed up to compete over two days. Friday after work, Helen and I walked into town to grab some dinner. After that we headed down to the harbour to have a look around. We got to see some freestyle motocross guys doing back flips and other crazy stuff. After the motocross, the BMX guys came out and were equally amazing.

Saturday, the weather wasn’t great and a bunch of the X-Air stuff was cancelled. We had a pretty crusy morning reading the paper and looking for houses and jobs. In the afternoon, we decided to go check out the climbing gym in Lower Hutt. It was nowhere near as good as the one in the city. I don’t think we will bother going out there again.

Sunday, we went and looked at houses and then went for an epic bike ride. We decided to go explore Belmont Regional Park. This place is only a short drive, and is pretty massive. We started out trying to take a short cut, which ended up sending us down a really fun trail. Unfortunately the track ended with a big sign prohibiting cyclists going any further. We had to turn around and climb back up the track. We finally got going the right way.


Lower Hutt and the Hutt River emptying into the Wellington Harbor.

We finally got off the paved road and ended up on a really nice singletrack that switchbacked its way up a pine tree covered hill for about 2km. From there an old double track took us out of the pines and into pasture. Most of the ride was rolling up and down a ridgeline that was covered in sheep and a few cows. We passed Round Knob and Cannons Head on our way to Belmont Trig. We were following orange markers most of the way, but managed to missed an important turn. We did a bit bush bashing before we managed to find our way back to the proper trail. The highest point on the ride was Belmont Trig (457m).


Helen posing with the Belmont Trig.

From the top of the trig the trail dropped down and down and down. We were both grateful when we finally hit a short section of uphill – arms and brakes needed a bit of rest. A bit further we came to Baked Beans Bend (no idea why it is called that) and Korokoro Stream. The trail crossed the stream at least half a dozen time, which was pretty cool (not too many stream crossings in Australia or Arizona), until I ended up with wet shoes. By the time we made it back to the car it was 6:30pm and we were both starving!


View of the Cook Sraight.