Motu Trails

This summer, whilst visiting family & friends, Anna & I went on a mini-tour of upper North-Island bike trails. One of my uncles lives in Opotiki, so this seemed a good excuse to visit the Motu Trails.

We didn’t have time to complete the whole 90km of the trail, so we parked at the shop by Tirohanga Motor Camp, and rode East along the Dunes Trail, before heading inland up the Motu Road.

The Dunes Trail is all easy going, cruising along close to the ocean. The only annoying bit is the “cyclist-juicers” you have to squeeze through.

After a bit of cruising along the Dunes, we headed inland, up one of those New Zealand roads that gets about 4 vehicles a day. There was a feeling of stepping back in time as we headed up the valley.

After a few kilometres of quiet sealed road, it turns to gravel. New Zealand roads aren’t very good. But even this is bad by our standards – 48km of narrow, winding roads. You don’t want to go too fast around the blind corners.

You’ve been warned:

Not a posed shot, or some country club where rich kids ride ponies. Just locals going for a ride

We meandered up the valley for a while, then stopped for lunch at a nice spot overlooking the river. Then a gentle cruise back down to where we started, for an ice-cream at the shop. Not a highly technical ride, just a nice gentle cruise through beautiful countryside. Perfect.

We’re hoping to return soon, to ride the Pakihi Trail. This is a more technical, challenging, mostly downhill trail. We’ve got a local contact (Thanks Uncle Barry!) who can drive us to the top of the Pakihi Trail. Hopefully we’ll find a few others to join us. Looking forward to it.