Five Full days after finishing the gruelling Tour Te Waipounamu, I was still down in the deep south and on the start of another long-distance bike packing race. The inaugural Tuatara 1000 starts and finishes in Invercargill and covers just over 1000 km of backcountry roads. Admittedly during the last days of the TTW, I thought that there was no chance I would be racing so soon again after feeling so low in energy and depleted. Even days before the start I was tuning into my body, to see if I was making the right decision. In the end, I got a Yes, game on let’s go.

After the TTW finished, I had some restful days in Invercargill. I hung out with Brian Alder for a couple of days and met some other riders and that was great to have a debrief. I went to Queenstown to see some friends, did some riding and ate heaps of food. My bike set-up remained the same and I packed the same gear I used in the TTW, so preparation was relatively easy. I went into this with a day-by-day perspective as I did not know how my body would react to more long days on the bike so soon after finishing the last one.

About 60 riders were gathered in Queens Park on an overcast morning on the 27th of February 2021. Most were doing the brevet option, which meant riders had to stop for a designated time within each 24 hrs and about 10 were tackling the non-stop version.

It was a reasonably fast start with Hayden McCormick steamrolling it at the front of a strung-out peloton. Hayden, an ex-pro road rider had no problem leading the bunch, he seemed like a man on a mission. After a couple of hours, I made the conscious decision to ride at my own pace, I didn’t want to chase or push to get away as I felt  I could blow up if I went too hard too soon. I got into my rhythm and generally rode by myself, catching others as well as being passed.

I passed through numerous bays and some wild southland beaches before heading inland in a northerly direction on some glorious gravel roads through countryside I’d never been to before. Getting to Te Anau after 235 km before 6 pm was a great reset before resuming the ride into the calm summer evening. As I approached Mossburn as darkness fell after 322kms, I thought it would be my final destination for the day, however, I pushed on for another 25kms or so to find a very glamorous bivvy spot, a very old rickety farm building was my lodging for the night. I was up and moving well before sunrise on day 2.

On the way to Mossburn as Darkness set in

The next resupply point was the town of Gore, I arrived about 7 am and was grateful a cafe was open for a hot drink and breakfast. I caught up with Grant Guise at some point after Gore, we rode together and had a good catch-up. On getting to the Tuapeka mouth, we had a wee stop for food, as the ferry across the Clutha River was not running we were resigned to the fact that we had to do the 20km alternate route. Gene Marsh and Myles Gibson turned up, and quickly we were all off down the west side of the river towards Clydevale to cross the road bridge. The day was getting hotter and I was starting to feel the exertions in my legs. I was happy to reach Lawrence in the middle of the day for the last resupply before Dunedin. It was kind of strange to be back here again so soon and in another race. Leaving Lawrence this time took us a different route, eastwards, one thing remained the same though, I was greeted with another big climb not far out of town, this one even bigger than the Breakneck Rd climb on the TTW.

The Race situation at this point was Hayden was about 70km ahead of me, Myles and Gene were not that far up the road and Grant was a bit behind having a longer stop in Lawrence. My goal at this point was to get to Dunedin before stopping. As I had not studied the route in any great detail I did not know what to expect. I did not think it would take so long to reach Dunedin. The route skirted around the west side of the city close to Mosgiel. I even had some Hike a Bike, this was however much more straightforward than on the TTW. I was getting pretty jaded as I eventually came close to the city, it was after 11 pm and not much was open along the route and I did not know the city well enough to detour to get food. I continued on hoping to pass a shop or something, but soon I was heading out of the peninsula into the night on quiet roads. My luxury accommodation for tonight was inside a toilet block at Broad Bay. It was a short rest and I was moving again before 3 am. The night was long as I traversed the Otago peninsula in the dead of night and waited for the first light of a new day.

The morning sun was welcome as I passed St Clair, still, nothing was open to resupply and I was conscious that I would soon be leaving the city limits and was acutely aware that the next resupply was 100 further on at Balclutha. I was feeling very sleepy at some point and had a 20-minute lie down in a bus shelter before moving on.

I spotted a Dairy shop and sat outside for a while hoping it would open at 7 am, it did and I grabbed some not-so-nutritious supplies and was on my way. I really enjoyed the next section passing Taieri Beach through farmlands and past Toko mouth. The beaches here and wild and empty and I must return to this area to explore some more. Rob Dawson, Film Maker from the TTW popped out on the road at Taieri Beach to grab a photo as he was slowly making his way home after his epic adventure shooting last week’s race.

On reaching Balclutha after lunch on a glorious summer day I realised that Gene and Myles were not that far behind, I had to keep moving if I wanted to stay in second position. Hayden was close to 100 km ahead and was surely going to ride to the finish in Invercargill.   The next section of the route was also very beautiful as I approached the Catlins area, again coming into the same places I was only one week ago. The undulating hills continued into the evening and  I was so grateful to be feeling good.  As darkness fell I was considering my options, The finish was only about 100kms away, but I was now riding on very little sleep and the guys chasing me were less than 20kms behind.

I continued on, riding somewhat on adrenaline, at the same time I could feel some fatigue in my body,  The route of this race had us ride out to Slope Point for a there and back, I was sure that I’d see Gene and Myles here. I did see lights at some point but never found out if it was them or not. After the Slope Point there and back , I checked the tracking page and seen that Hayden had finished  and that Gene and Myles were really not that far behind. I was determined to keep my second position, and even though I did not plan on an all-nighter, it looked like the likely scenario with the boys chasing hard behind me.  I smashed out another much easier  there and back out to Waipapa Point  and continued on the sealed road somewhere around 2 am

Gene and Myles did eventually stop, maybe around 3 am, I kept going thinking in my head that I’d get to Invercargill just as things were opening up around 7 am. This did not happen and I went into a weird time warp for the next few hours The route brought us down along the Mataura River towards the coast. Down along here there are heaps of ramshackle huts, randomly spread out along the track. As it was dark all I could see was what my light lit up, these huts generally looked in bad shape and there was nobody around, no lights, I felt like I was on the set of a creepy horror movie. I was now really jaded and my sense of perception was very mixed up. As I rode past all these wretched buildings I had a massive sense of Deja Vu, I felt convinced that I had being here before. I knew I hadn’t, not in this lifetime anyway. I would later find out that these were fishermen’s huts for white baiting. I pushed through the sandy beach section and was riding on gravel, like a zombie, I was getting close to falling asleep on the bike, I tried everything to stay alert, shouting, water over my face, slapping my face etc… nothing worked, I would have to stop. This was frustrating as I only had about 40kms to the end and was hoping to finish it in under 3 full days.

The next challenge was finding a suitable place to lie down, this took a while as it felt like these were roads, with drains on either side traversing swamp lands, I came on some big pine trees, jumped over a drain, wrapped up and set the alarm for 30 mins. The alarm startled me, and it felt like I had just shut my eyes, I pulled up the Tracking page and saw the guys were on the move, meaning I had to move also. Unfortunately, the sun was struggling to penetrate the low fog, I was cold and pretty much out of water as I slowly made my way into the outskirts of Invercargill.

My wife called me 5 km from the end thinking that I had already reached the finish, I said call back soon i was not there yet. I reached the Rotunda in Queens Park at 9.15 am, taking just over 3 days to complete the 1066 km. Overall not much sleep was had but I  felt pretty good for the most part except maybe for things going a little weird in the last hours before the finish.

Bikepacking is tough

So two new races were completed between the 14th Feb and the 2nd of March covering about 2,400 km of beautifully rugged South Island terrain. Many ups and many downs, all everlasting memories of two more epic adventure rides on two wheels

Big Congrats to Hayden McCormick on a super strong ride and thanks to Gene and Myles for pushing and racing all the way

Thank you to Andy Chalmers for creating this super nice route

Check out  https://greatkiwigravel.blogspot.com/   for more NZ bikepacking events