For those of you who don’t know what the “double fence line” is I will elaborate. It can be found the Kennetts’ book under the title “Mount Fitzgerald”. It’s a loop that starts in Little River, goes up the Port Levy Road to the saddle, then turns off the road heads east and follows a paper road often between a double fence line, hence the nickname. The track finishes on Pettigrews Road which is up behind the hill top, from there riders head back to the hilltop and can descend the stock route or wind their way down the sealed road with the ever present camper vans returning from Akaroa. All up, its about a 34 km loop and you climb from 5m about sea level to 800m (most of which is on the approach to the summit and start of the double fence line track).

As I said earlier the end of September was crappy weather wise. So too was the start of October. With an eye peeled towards the sky our tram of 16 odd riders drove the relatively short drive to Little River. The unofficial plan was that if it looks like shite when we got to Little River we could have a nice coffee and a bit of cake and high tail it back to town. Little River was good weather. So we began the long climb to the top, splitting in to numerous smaller clusters of riders all striving to reach the top and begin the off road traverse. Just before we reached the saddle however the wind (which I thought would be horrible if it was present) made it’s presence known. A nasty cold easterly. It stuck with us the whole way. The grass under tire was not too wet and short as the spring regrowth had not begun. So riding conditions were good apart from the wind. We made the compulsory stop at the wind blown trees, the dead stump trees, the little metal gate next to the big tree over looking the cattle yard made of old trees, and the remaining native forest trees provided us cover from the wind for our late lunch. The ride took around 5 hours, 2.5 of which was riding time. Along the way we encountered several small snow drifts which provide amusement for those who tried to ride them. (See photo - you are all walking!-Ed)

AThe ride completed, bikes remounted on cars and riders spruced up we went to the other reason you’d visit Little River. The fine foodie establishment of the Little River café. As the ride is reasonably long for most of the riders and we burned excess calories trying to keep warm in the wind everyone agreed it was vital to eat the largest piece of cake/pizza/biscuit they could find. So we did. Many of us succeeded.

For those of you who want something a bit more difficult than riding the port hills and like riding open grassy rides, don’t mind a climb on dirt roads, and only an hour’s drive from Christchurch I can thoroughly recommend the Double Fence Line. I can also recommend the chocolate cake, the citrus slice and the vege pizza too.