Moonshiners Prepare to Tackle the Hills
Hundreds of Southlanders are preparing to get off road and take on the Hokonui Hills by bike or foot, with the MLT Moonshine Trail next Saturday, February 10.
The annual event is open to walkers, runners, mountain bikers, duathletes and e-bikers, and offers a unique once a year chance to take on exclusive courses across the Hokonui Hills that span 5km to 50km.
Sport Southland Event Manager Matt Sillars said the event was always a great day out, and
with entrants so far ranging in age from 9 to mid-60s, he was encouraging plenty more
Southlanders to join the fun.
“We’re so lucky to live in a region with some amazing natural resources, and also so
fortunate that several landowners allow us access to their land once a year so we can put on this event in such a diverse range of terrain types,” he said.
“The courses all offer their own challenges – but remember what goes uphill must come
down, so there’s plenty of fun amidst it all – but they’re also achievable. Our team love
seeing how much people have enjoyed the courses when they’ve crossed the finish line at
Dolamore Park.”
The MLT Moonshine Trail is now in its 12 th year, and continues to be a popular event on the south’s calendar. Based at Dolamore Park, near Gore, there are seven events including a 5km walk/run, 15km run, 30km, 39km and 50km mountain bike courses and a duathlon.
This year organisers have also introduced an e-bike category over the 30km mountain bike
course and while Sillars was not expecting the category to be overly popular this year, he
anticipated it was an area that could grow in years to come.
“We are opening the 30km course to e-bikes for the first time and, while it’s hard to know if we’ll even get any entries in that category this year, we know in the wider cycling community it’s an area really growing in popularity so we wanted to get in early and see what, if any, demand was out there for e-bikes in events like this,” he said.
“Regardless of that, we know people love the traditional mountain bike courses, the off-road run and walk and the duathlon, so we’ve got a good mix across a range of distances.”
MLT Moonshine Trail entries are open online at www.moonshinetrail.co.nz until midnight on Wednesday 7 th February.
On the day entries would also be accepted, with details on entering and pricing available on the website.
The MLT Moonshine Trail is based at Dolamore Park near Gore, and includes:
- MLT 5km Walk/Run
- Shoe Clinic 15km Run
- Macpac Duathlon
- Ewan Allan Honda 30km MTB
- Southland Isuzu 39km MTB
- CrossRoad Cycles 50km MTB
- 30km E-Bike