Killdevil
FLIGHT TIME: 25 MINUTES
TOUR DURATION: 5 HOURS +
LANDINGS: 1
DETAILS:
Bike and equipment hire available via Helibike Nelson.
If you want to customise any of our trips or discuss options, please feel free to contact us.
DEPARTURE TIME & LOCATION:
Morning/Afternoon departures
Helicopters Nelson Base
The Killdevil Helibike is a very special trip into the remote back country of the Kahurangi National Park. The riding is full-on and very satisfying for those that like to push themselves, a large number of very technical rocky switchback’s keep you on your toes and the views will leave you breathless.
We start with a 20 minute scenic flight across the Tasman bay, climbing up over the Mount Arthur range and Flora saddle then down into the back country mountains where we land close to Riordan’s hut at 875m above sea level
There are three options to this trip depending on how much climbing you want to do and how big a ride you want to make it, the full trip will take it out of even the fittest riders hence a couple of other options.
Option 1 – The Full Monty
We land at Riordan Hut and then ride the big beech forest descent down to Waignaro Hut (pink section in map above). We stop here for a break and look around at the old hut and relics of the mining days. once we are ready we then spend a couple of hours climbing back up the way we came, and on up to the top of the ridge line again (986m). After changing mental modes from “forest” to “radical rock” we ride along the ridge line and then down the numerous switchbacks of the spur to the bottom (orange section). Here we meet the van and head back over the Takaka Hill to Nelson stopping at a watering hole along the way for a “debrief”.
Option 2 – The Half Monty
As with option 1 but we miss out on the trip down to Waingaro Forks and instead, just do the technical rocky ridge-line and spur. This is a great ride in itself and can be combined with other riding options in the area on the same day.
