The Around the Mountains Cycle trail is located on the South Island. It starts at Kingston or Walter Peak. The 186kms takes in the remote Wilderness. More Information: Around the Mountains Cycle Trail.

In March 2023, 4 intrepid riders from the Ebike Social Riders Hawkes Bay group set off to conquer the trail. Here is their accouint.

For those cyclists that will give anything a go, or just nutters like ourselves, the following is a brief summary of our 4 day Around the Mountains. After a few of our favorite rides around Otago we began our first guided tour with our tour leader who picked us up from Queenstown Airport where we parked our cars for 4 days. A hello to the rest of the crew in the shuttle and we are on our way to Kingston. Bikes unloaded and we cover a distance of 65km through ever changing scenery, farms, hills, valleys and bush and on to Lumsden that will be remembered for its iconic historic hotel “recently renovated” in 1954.

Day 2 Lumsden – Mossburn – Centre Hill, 45km, scenery a bit lacking today as a lot of the trail was beside the road, but on to a good couple of nights stay at Lake Te Anau.

Day 3 an optional ride from Lake Te Anau to Lake Manapouri, a distance of 63km.

Our final Day 4 Mavora Lakes – Nicolas Station – Walter Peak Station a distance of 52km with 378 elevation. I think we all agreed this was our most challenging ride so far. An incline of 18kms at the start sucked our battery power up, at last we reached the peak and looked at the steep downhill that went for 3km, avoiding ruts and loose gravel (note to self – replace brake pads on return home!) we finally descended down to the valley and some easy riding on the flat we thought, nope! straight into a strong head wind that lasted for most of the remainder of the trip, more battery power! We crossed a ford (proudly) then came to a fast flowing stream, wish I had taken some photos but 4 people had different ideas on where to cross, eventually we went for it, avoiding the current and large stones at the bottom, 2 decided to walk and get wet feet and 2 rode hoping they weren’t going to get wet (and bruised) bums. Finally some 30km along we met our guide who had our lunch at an abandoned stone cottage. Having given us the hurry up “you need to pick up the pace as the Earnslaw Steamship leaves at 3pm from Walter Peak” lunch break 10 minutes and we were soon on our way again, although a herd of cows did slow our pace for wee while. As we dropped down to Lake Whakatipu the scenery was spectacular and jaw dropping. We dragged our tired bodies on to the boat, exhausted, exhilarated, bought a wine and looked at each other speechless but all thinking “did we just do all that”.

In conclusion I think we all agreed this last day was a highlight of our Otago rides, cycling through the valleys with ranges either side, the sheer remoteness of it, the mirror images of Mavora Lakes, the great company, this one is hard to beat! Note to future riders it does take a week to regain your level energies afterwards. Photos are from us all!

Words: J Garrett Images: J. Garret, G Mitchell, A Jago, T Coombes

NB Click on image to enlarge