Rangitata Gorge and Mesopotamia

This is a 140km ride from Geraldine through Peel Forest and the Rangitata Gorge to Mesopotamia, and back out to Geraldine.

We've made this ride many times, and the scenery changes spectacularly with the season.

It's an easy ride, on a well-maintained road.  The first 24 km is on sealed road through the Peel Forest village and on to the Rangitata Gorge Road.  From there on it's a good unsealed road.

Click here to see the route on Google Maps.

The ride from Geraldine to Peel Forest and through Blandswood is easy on good sealed roads.

About 40km out from Geraldine the sealed road finishes and you travel the rest of the journey on good unsealed roads. There are several fords further up the road which have always been easily negotiable on any of our trips.

At times the unsealed road surface can be tricky, especially on some of the corners.

This road does not have a lot of traffic, and after it's been graded it can take a while for good hard tyre tracks to form. Until that happens there can be a layer of loose gravel over a hard surface, and you'll know what that means.

There's an interesting historic site near the end of the Rangitata Gorge Road.  During the Governorship of Robert Fitzroy a Dr Andrew Sinclair was appointed New Zealand's Colonial Secretary and a member of the Legislative Council. While accompanying Julius von Haast on an expedition to explore the Rangitata and Ashburton rivers Dr Sincalir was tragically swept away while crossing the Rangitata River and drowned. He was buried near Mesopotania Station, and the Conservation Department has tidied up the area around the gravesite. We've put a green marker on the map showing where we THINK the gravesite is. There are directions from the roadside near the end of the public road.  Read about Dr Sinclair and the grave site here and here and here.

If you ride past the homestead and follow the track up into the trees you'll find the old Mesopotamia school (which we've marked with a yellow pin on the map), and a deerstalkers hut.

To see the two locations more clearly on the Google Maps route map click the "satellite" view and zoom in.