Bikepacking the Kahurangi 600

The Kahurangi 600 (or Kahurangi 500 as it's commonly known), is probably the most epic mountainbike bikepacking route in Aotearoa New Zealand. I consider it a privilege to visit this wild, remote part of the country and even as a North Islander coming from Auckland, it's only a regional flight away - accessible enough to call it my backyard.

Because I don't know who'd be reading this, I should make it clear that the main highlights of the route; the Old Ghost Road and Heaphy Track are long, remote backcountry trails and you should absolutely be carrying a personal locator beacon. The Heaphy does NOT allow e-bikes and there are no power sockets in any huts. I didn't see a single e-bike on the OGR; there are also no power anywhere in the huts and if you run out of battery (which is likely), it's not a fun time. You cannot bypass the Heaphy Track as an option, there are no roads. Mountainbike skills are also essential – I'll get to it further on.

The other points that anyone reading this needs to differentiate from the commonly known K500, is that:

1. There's an extra easy 100kms on the Great Taste Trail, to make it a loop starting and finishing from Nelson airport.
2. That the route we rode is the ANTICLOCKWISE, 'backwards' loop described in the Kennett Brothers' Bikepacking Aotearoa guidebook. 

When Jonathan Kennett briefly visited earlier this year, I questioned him why he published the anticlockwise route when everyone else goes clockwise - it's especially strange to go west to east on the Old Ghost Road. He replied, that at the time of writing, the Heaphy Track runs better going east to west, and so does the Old Ghost Road, so you'd have to pick one of them to go backwards on. It seemed that there had been improvements made on the Heaphy Track since, and I can ascertain now, that the climb into it in the clockwise direction, is much smoother and gentler.

Since my whole 11-day plan spreadsheet (view here & make a copy) had been done in January, huts booked and GPX files routed (which you can download here), the plan was set in stone. The only thing left to do was to brush up my rusty mountainbike skills and ride my bike more. I wouldn't even call it training, I was merely making time to ride my bike.

Running a bikepacking bag business solo, is like wearing every hat in the company and it eventually wears you down. I can recount the many Saturday mornings I got on the bike feeling like death. Sometimes I look at a rooty trail and the body says 'no'. Some days I can ride tricky stuff. It turned out the best 'training' I did was getting outside on the bike, riding whatever parts of Grade 3 or 4 trails I could manage, seize every chance to get wet in waterholes and at the beach...and the finale of my prep was an Easter weekend at Rotorua on the MTB shuttle runs.

Desperate measures to practice mountainbiking on 'Corners' at Rotorua - a downhill trail with too many corners to count.

The mountainbike practice meant riding singletrack harder than just Woodhill trails – Hunua Ranges singletrack, Hunua Traverse, nasty Riverhead Forest trails and Maraetai Forest trails. This all went against my traditional brevet training, to eat up kilometres and spend hours riding. I didn't have numerous spare hours to ride and my longest ride since September 2025 totalled 80kms and nothing even close thereafter. The more technical stuff you can ride on the K600, the higher the satisfaction level.

The biggest relief was our 11 day plan, designed for my partner Andrew (but for myself too, I realised), whose longest multi-day ride was to be the K600. He doesn't like riding all day anyways, but he's fit and he has slightly better MTB skills than me. My only focus was to make small pedal strokes each day, not fall off the cliffs and get fitter as we progressed. The weather of course, had to play ball and I was expecting anything but windless, blue sky days for 8 days straight. Unbelievable.

Each day was no more than 1400m elevation regardless of the distance/surface. We rolled by 7:30am and finished by 2 to 3pm.

Bike assembly station at Nelson airport, with a tool stand.

The first three days on the K600 were spent literally, recovering from work. Day 1's 50kms on the Great Taste Trail from Nelson airport to Motueka, following tourist trail signs got us there for dinner. Might I mention that it was so cool that the GTT bypasses the main road by going to Rabbit Island and connects to Mapua by a ferry, that changes to fewer operating days later in May, so that's why you need to do this anti-clockwise before the ferry goes on winter break!! 

Variable Oystercatchers at the ferry landing on Rabbit Island looking over to Mapua.

Andrew's Specialized Epic kitted out with Paper Roads bags: 11L dryroll in a harness, clip-on Bandito front bag for food, top tube bag, treatbags, framebag and 14L rear dryroll.

By some stroke of luck, we had a full day's activity planned out on Day 2. We had to get ourselves 45kms to Takaka, up the massive Takaka Hill road climb, then more uphill on the Canaan Rd gravel road to the start of the Historic Rameka singletrack. My road cycling body struggled to come to life and the suffering blissfully ended at the singletrack in the cool beech forest. Because we weren't in a hurry, the 6km of on/off singletrack was enjoyable. The more skills you have, the more rideable it is. I was riding a hardtail and Andrew was on a full suspension, so at times I got more held up.

A break on the trail for a lunch of cheese and fruit paste on wraps.

When we entered the Project Rameka trails on the side of the hill facing Takaka, we found Bronwen Wall (whose Survival Aotearoa book I'd been reading the previous week) weeding on the trail, then found Jonathan Kennett on Great Expectations. It was a mint downhill trail and not stop/start like the native style trails!

We were hosted by the ultra riding legend Chris Bennett and and wife Lis, and they own the Quiet Revolution bike shop in town and we were driven to their home for the night. Lis had a fig tree that was chockers; it was a dream come true, to taste REAL FIGS! Her ocean-view garden was full of incredible edible fruit and vegetables (this is really living). We went back into town after dinner since coincidentally, Chris was giving a talk on his Guiness record world ride at the Rameka AGM, held by Jonathan and Bronnie. It was an educational evening learning about the multiple partnerships that made the Rameka trails happen, trapping pests on the land and regenerating the native environment.

Myself and Chris Bennett

The third day was a short 23km ride on the road to Collingwood to stay a night in the far-flung corner of the south island. I was still continuously sleepy and recovering from work, so it was healing to have a nap in a warm bed and a wander down the beach. Meeting a seal outside our cabin by surprise was the last thing I'd expected. It was the first time I've seen a wild seal this close and thought that it's 'like a wet cat'.

Day 4, 50kms. The Heaphy Track opened to riders on 1st May, and we were primed to be there early in the morning. It'll be a shame to not spend more time on the Heaphy as our first ever visit, so we had 2 nights in huts. I was more excited about running into Joe Nation @joe__nation, who was bound to come in the opposite direction on his FKT K500 ride. We had talked on Instagram before but I was sure I'd get starstruck if we met! The 17km rough, rocky climb to Perry Saddle Hut was arduous and a 'great idea' from the Kennett Brothers (ha. ha.)

The best line was often close to the drop-off, so I rode on the rocks until I got sick of it and walked. The only concern was that I didn't want to meet Joe walking my bike. Luckily I was on the bike when he came around the corner and I screamed "JOE NATION!!! Don't stop, keep going, go go go!" That I was glad of, because he was 3 minutes under 30hrs on his FKT and it could've been 3 minutes I spend talking to him. The hut was full of bikers and we finished so much earlier than what I'm used to. I also had to answer a few questions about Paper Roads bags, so that was cool to be using my stuff in the wild.

Day 5 was only 42kms rolling along the tops of the Heaphy Track, tackling some more techy rocky bits and a long blast downhill to Heaphy Hut, on what would be the smooth ascent on a gentler gradient for those going clockwise. Not a breath of wind and big blue skies. Ridiculous!

We met Chris Wood (who picked up Joe's lost Gopro), who might as well be a paralympian riding with a prosthetic arm attached to his handlebar by a spindle or ball bearing. Then ran into Nic and Vic from Auckland, then got stopped by a couple who knew me but never met – they were Scott and Debbie Ardern @the_girl_that_bikes_also_hikes whom I've dot watched on a few races, awed by their amazing athleticism. This place was full of impressive people! We also made a tiny side quest after Gouland Downs Hut – after exiting the 'enchanted forest', there's a cairn on the right and a faint track in the scrub. Follow the track and you'll find a limestone cave. Bring a head torch if you want to go caving. 

Sight of the estuary on the west coast, not far from Heaphy Hut. The vegetation changes dramatically due to the microclimate and has many plants similar to the Auckland west coast.

My plan had expected us to be fairly fit by Day 6, that we could ride the last 14kms out of the Heaphy, to Karamea for a good feed and resupply, haul all the food up a 12km road climb, for 2 nights on the Old Ghost Road, and stay at Seddonville Hotel. A total of 86kms. All I noticed was that the 12km climb was 400m elevation but couldn't work out where the other 600m came from, since the elevation profile looked flat. The trail around the wild west coast was spectacular, and spectacularly hilly, so we'd knocked off a pile of elevation first thing.

By the base of the big hill, I enjoyed the luxury getting some eye-shut in the sun! Eventually we had to knock off the climb and my road cycling legs had returned from holidaying on Mars...it was one of those never ending hills that you have to take as it comes, around every corner. Andrew was staying close behind me lest he take off in front and blow himself up, and we rode all the way to Seddonville for a well-earned drink at the hotel! It's a little middle-of-nowhere place with a warm fire and you'd happily take whatever food they had.

Funnily enough, Darren and his mate showed up and I hadn't recognised my customer until we got talking. We had our new friend from Israel, Eliav with us for the third night and he was very good company and I learnt a lot about the bikepacking community in Israel. Bikepacking is amazing, when you're not in a hurry - you are travelling to broaden your views and make meaningful conversations.

Riding the Old Ghost Road and the Heaphy Track has been many years in the making. There's an unspoken truth I need to tell here. If you're a man reading this, this is purely the experience living as a woman in her 30's, which is not dissimilar to being an 'outsider'. For women from metropolitan places in particular, the entry into mountainbiking, extending to technical, remote rides, is considerably more difficult, due to it being a simple numbers game. There are fewer women doing it and it's harder for us to find each other. Learning from my partner's experience, for him to find like minded guys just from his workplace current and past, required no effort. 'Boys getaway trips' seem to spring up all around me, where there's bound to be the reassurance of camaraderie (which I can only dream of), even if you're the extra to make up the numbers. Gender and age difference can make it awkward for women to join. I can speak from past knowledge, that not every wife at home will take it well and it starts sounding suspect when the female rider of the group is two decades younger and 'not white'. Boys going on their trips are great and I'd prefer not to be part of one – so this is the personal journey I had to take:

8 years is the length of time it took me to work up the courage, skills, have the right bike and experience to tackle the epic, world-class Old Ghost Road and Kahurangi 600 – mentally preparing to go solo, or else it'll never happen.

After dotwatching me on brevets for the last 8 years, Andrew piped up and said he wanted to come with his new Specialized Epic, to my utter surprise. Thanks to the Work Ride program, he finally bothered to buy a bike suitable for bikepacking. It made it that much more special, to have him with me, doing the training together and basically ride at a tandem pace the whole way. 

The western entry on Day 7 into the OGR, uphill along the Mokohinui River gorge is definitely a bigger task than the tamed ascent from the other end. Sometimes you don't need to ride as fast as possible and do the easier option to eat up kilometres. I came up through the narrow, rocky trail, littered with piles of river slate, as a fan of tricky single track by the end.

The Boneyard was a swooping descent built as well as any downhill trail at a MTB park.

It flattens out nicely until a steady climb to the top of the Boneyard descent, through the boulder field (not sure how they built the trail on a hillside full of precariously perching boulders the size of trucks). Honestly it's world-class. We arrived at Stern Valley hut at 2pm and my habit of getting into cold water over summer drew me to the freezing creek for a splash in the sun, before it set over the hills. 50kms for the day.

Day 8 was the shortest distance I've bikepacked in a day (23kms) but proportionately the most elevation. Because, the Kennett Brothers had in their minds, to send us on a 1.5hr hike a bike from the Skyline Stairs to Ghost Lake Hut plus more to the highest point. Thankfully, the weather was sublime. It was a perfect day for a walk and slowly take in the views.

The alpine section of the OGR above the tree line was surprisingly short despite almost every photo you see of the OGR are of the iconic section with sheer drop offs. After a satisfying lunch of duck flavoured instant noodles at Ghost Lake Hut, a series of switchbacks on the descent to Lyell Saddle Hut kept us occupied like a game of 'who can turn more right hand switchbacks'. We found the two youngest riders who were women (!!!!) on the trail, decades younger than the rest besides myself and Andrew. It was so intrepid of them and impressive at their age, to be taking on multiple remote trails on their MTB  road trip from Wanaka. We all read a copy of "Spirit to the Stone" that night, by Marion Boatwright, who is the mastermind behind the OGR. The appreciation for the trail and its history soared upon finishing the book. 

On Day 9, we were near to closing the loop of the K500 route, riding 82kms to Gowanbank Backpackers. The blue sky spell broke and gave us a break from the blinding brightness in fact. A quick swooping descent, past twin waterfalls flowing across the trail (incredible track building) saw us exit the famed trail and a quiet road ride along the Buller River to Murchison. From there, we retraced my tyre marks from the Tour Aotearoa in 2018, over the Braeburn track (just a gravel road) to my second stay with Louise and Tony at Lake Rotoroa. We spent the night working through the massive dinner they cooked. 

The weather finally caught up with us on Day 10 where we had 108kms to ride on roads and cycle trail. An atmospheric start in the mist, then a not so pleasant section on the highway, where if you're good at road cycling, you could ride it faster and get off it sooner. You'd definitely want to look bright for peace of mind on a grey day. The gravel road through Tadmor Valley was dead quiet and aerobars are a good idea for the lengthy flat road sections on the K600 when not in the mountains.

Surprisingly, the Great Taste Trail had been built over the years, to connect Tapawera to Nelson completely off road. I also got to ride Spooners Tunnel at last. There was a detour on the GTT, where I'd idiotically mapped a detour longer than the correct detour on a road with trucks. The last long stretch to Wakefield was a headwind battle despite trending downhill. The real rain came while we scoffed down food at the bakery and turned the corner to the Wakefield Hotel, where there were hot showers, a bed, a warm fire, drinks and dinner. Even secure bike storage.

The final stretch to Nelson Airport on Day 11 was only 25kms. The rain had been continuous all night, but I'm glad to say we rode it all until there were no more kilometres to ride. We timed trialled on aerobars in the gap in the weather window into wild headwind, packed our bikes into boxes from Air NZ for $35 each, utilised the airport showers and celebrated the end of a very successful Kahurangi 600. 

Thank you to the Kennett Brothers for inspiring us to rise up to the challenge of going against the flow, anti-clockwise on the K600.