Belmont Trig Trail | Time Out 2021-22 Wellington
What a contrast to yesterday, woke to stormy wet weather and low cloud. It was still quite warm, around 16°C, but not a great day for riding the Remutaka Ranges. After mucking around all morning, some travel/home admin and watching videos, decided to take a look at some mountain bike trails near the motel.
An entrance to Belmont Regional Park (
2) is just across the highway from where I was staying (
1). The rain, if not the storm, eased off around midday so I decided to explore some of it. Although close to suburbia is it also fairly remote so had my full 'day ride' kit with thermals, wet weather gear, tools and locator beacon onboard.
The Puke Ariki (or ‘The Place of Leaders’) Traverse (dark green line below) traverses the length of Belmont Regional Park but there are other options in there.
Crossing the highway at Petone Station, weather a contrast to yesterday. They say, 'You can't beat Wellington on a good day', but I'd add you never know when those will be!
The access is through an unpromising light industrial area but before long you completely forget the city suburbia is nearby. The trail follows Korokoro Valley/Stream with several bridge, or ford if you prefer, stream crossings along the way.
It passes the Lower Korokoro dam. There's another further up the Valley I didn't see as turned off for the (steep) 413m climb on the Belmont Trig Track.
The trail varies between steep and gentle climbing passing through some lovely native bush.
The last kilometre or so is on exposed wide grassy trail. It was blowing a gale, nearly too much to ride, but not enough to clear the cloud!
You’ll be rewarded with 360-degree views from the Tararua Ranges all the way to the Kaikōura Ranges.
Belmont Trig Track - WellingtonRegionalTrails.com
Or not...
After being blasted by gales decided wasn't the day to complete the traverse (rated grade 5) as would see little beyond the trail anyway.
I just enjoyed the awesome downhill as I retraced my path back to a long hot shower. In the end it was about 17km, ~500m climbing, without ever being more than ~5km from the motel
The forecast for tomorrow is promising, hopefully it will be 'Remutaka Trail day' as had intended to head home on Sunday. At least this time if the weather doesn't cooperate have the option to stay a bit longer.
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