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It was my friend Ian’s significant birthday earlier in the year and we’d planned to do the old ghost road to celebrate. Unfortunately Covid got in the middle of that, so it was delayed until November. I was excited and slightly stressed to attempt it. I’m not a great biker (though I do enjoy it), and I’d heard tales that there were tricky sections (there were, but quite walkable), and that it was pretty hard work (it was, but not toooooo much). It was however an entirely fun and thoroughly worth doing ride.

We went from Lyell through to Seddonville and stayed one night at Ghost Lake. The first day is a bunch of climbing through nice beach forest. It’s steady, but, not overly steep (it just doesn’t stop).

At the top we were not rewarded by amazing views, but at least it wasn’t raining too hard (or snowy or too windy) as is often the case on the West Coast.

Really nice hut, and the lake was cold, but refreshing (no, just splashed water, too chicken to go for an actual swim ;)

That was 30km for the first day, mostly uphill. It really wasn’t too bad though at all. Any time I was struggling, I just thought about how utterly miserable Donald Trump must be feeling about losing the election, and that picked my spirits right up again.

The second day was 55km of mostly downhill out to Seddonville. The hardest section of the track was immediately after Ghost Lake and I walked large sections of it. The Skyline Steps I walked down, apparently someone (or some people) have ridden it, but, it seemed utterly unrideable to me. The weather had cheered up and it was pretty clear but nicely overcast on the way out. Actually perfect riding conditions, it’d be pretty damn hot if the sun was beating down.

All in all a really enjoyable trip, and definitely one I’d be happy to recommend. Also, Hurrah Donald Trump lost!

One of the advantages of being on our little isolated island during a pandemic is that we mostly pushed covid back to the borders and so people were allowed to meetup again. I organised the whiskey night again for the x-Egressive crowd which was good fun, and also managed to get out biking with friends a few times and off skiing for the day. The conditions this year have been thankfully rubbish for skiing. I say thankfully, because, being the grinch I am it’s far nicer to think that it’s rubbish conditions and I’m not really missing out vs it’s wonderful conditions and the slopes are bare because of covid and I’m missing out on some epic days! Still, can’t help but think that the season is going to continue getting shorter and shorter, and more and more marginal as climate change heats things up.