Our one day trip on the Tasman Great Taste Trail with kids

We brought our bikes from home and did our own DIY transport.  We were staying at the Motueka Top 10 Holiday Park and drove our car to Richmond, around 30 minutes away and parked on the side of the road.

We left it there overnight and my husband caught a local bus to pick it up in the morning.  Very easy and the most cost effective option as a family.

Tasman Great Taste Trail Day Trip: Richmond to Motueka (45km over the whole day)

I really loved this ride as it had such variety with boardwalks, very light gravel, beach side biking and only a small section on the actual road.  In a lot of places there was a cycle trail right beside the road (but not actually an on-road cycle track like you see in the city) so I found this really safe for our family of 5.

The last section between Mapua and Lower Moutere was the hardest with some grade 3 cycling (gravel) and some good hills here, but check out our detailed info and it might help you decide whether you’d do this part.

Great Taste Trail: Richmond to Mapua (about 2 hours, 14km ish)

The section between Richmond and Mapua is all classed as grade 1, which is the easiest of cycling.  All flat, some very mild gravel which wasn’t hard to negotiate at all.

We weren’t cycling for pace to see how fast we could get this trip down.  The boys were well under instruction that this was a fun “Sunday drive” and it would be hardest on their little sister who is on a 20” mountain bike, with wheels much smaller than theres and there were no real complaints.

From Richmond to Rabbit Island, it took us about 2 hours with a couple of photo stops and snack stops.

My garmin clocked this section in around 14km.

Highlights of the Richmond to Mapua Section

• Cool boardwalks to cross
• A swing bridge over the Waimea River
• Estuary with lots of birdlife and some great informative panels to read
• Farmland tracks up high over the paddocks
• Pretty coastline

Rabbit Island

I highly recommend you pack your togs if you are cycling in the summer or the warmer months as this is such a great stop.  Everyone could have kept going as we weren’t too tired at this stage, but who can say no to a swim.

We took the first beach access point we could find, heading straight ahead where we could see it as opposed to turning left where the cycle trail sign lead us.  There were toilets here and found a picnic table near the beach to sit at so quite a good spot.

The water on Rabbit Island was surprisingly warm and it just glistened in the sunlight.  We had never been here before and this is definitely a place I would drive back to and hang out for the day.

The kids went for a swim, did some surf lifesaving beach sprints to drive off their togs and we shared the two towels before getting back into our cycling clothes.  

Great Taste Trail: Rabbit Island to Mapua Ferry (about 30 minutes, 6km)

It was a short 30 minute cycle, around 6km from Rabbit Island to the Mapua Ferry.  This went through the Pine Forest and while it went close to the beach, you couldn’t really see it.  You can find the Mapua Ferry schedule on their website online but when we went, the Mapua Ferry left each hour at 10 minutes past the hour, so we headed across on the 1.10pm ferry.

It was quite blustery waiting for the Ferry and it was really interested to see it travel almost sideways across the river to get to us.  But if you arrive early like us, there is a shelter with a few picnic tables so you can get out of the weather if you need to.  Such a great wee set up.

As at January 2025, The Mapua Ferry cost $30 for our family of 5 one way, or $35 return so that’s pretty cool if you were planning to come back again.  You just pay on board.  We had cash but I’m also pretty certain there was EFTPOS on board too.

It was a 5 minute trip across the water which didn’t take long at all.  The kids all pushed their bikes onto the boat and there were about 20 bike racks which they used for the adult bikes and the kids smaller bikes they just held onto while we sailed.

The Mapua Ferry was purposely set up for bikers to cross over which is pretty awesome.  Apparently is the only ferry crossing on any New Zealand cycle trail so that makes it quite unique.  There’s no other way to get to Mapua unless you went back out from Rabbit Island and went along the road.

Mapua

If you haven’t self catered your own lunch like we had, which we ate while waiting for the Ferry, this is your best stop.  There are a number of restaurants here you can choose from and some cute shops here.  We stopped at Hamish’s ice creams for a real fruit ice cream which were delicious and my smoothie with Pics Peanut Butter was pretty damn good too.

Great Taste Trail: Mapua to Motueka (25km over 3¼ to 3½ hours)

The section from Mapua to Motueka was the hardest section we biked today.  It was lovely cycling through the suburb and out to Ruby Bay.  You biked beside the beach here which was pretty, then again on the road where we hung a left to head up the hill.

The hill here was all on tarseal so you could just put your bike in a slow gear and keep going.  Emilia got a little stuck with changing down her gears so we just pushed it up and she got a nice push from Ashley.  I walked with her so can’t really comment on how hard it was, but the others all made it up this section on their bikes.

Then we headed back down the road and then there was a small trail that ran alongside the road, but off it.

The hard part was when we got the main highway that runs between Motueka and Richmond.  Hard because you know it’s a nice flat road back into the township, about 12km it said on Google Maps from where we were, but we still had much longer than that in our direction unfortunately.

So you head under the road and up the hill, then up more of a hill and it just keeps climbing.  If you peddled in low gear or had an e-bike it would probably be fine, but 20km or so in, Emilia was a combination of two things.  One, tired because it would have been around 3pm at this stage and a long day, but also two, being the smallest and finding it hard when the other kids can do it is very demoralising.  I sympathise with her.

If we had a tow rope with us, this would have helped immensely as we found she wasn’t too bad with a bit of pushing.  One of us actually got off the bike and pushed her a bit

But it was hard as we were continually heading away from Motueka, and when we thought we could have a long road down, it turned into the grade three gravel track that was undulating.

Great if you are super confident going downhill on gravel and could go fast to get up the other side.  Too much for the little 6 year old.  But finally when we hit the viewpoint over Motueka, it was all (practically) downhill from here.

This was also the point where we ran out of water since it was quite a warm day and I realised I’d never seen any fill up stations.  Perhaps I thought there would be a purpose built one after the Mapua Ferry (hint hint) but maybe I just missed this, so I’d love to know if you saw them along the track.

The thought of buying more plastic bottles when we had our own seemed silly, but we did grab a couple of bottles of Powerade at Lower Moutere at the gas station.  We were so thirsty here that we’d started looking for streams in the farmland as we came down the hill, but to no avail.

From here, it was flat along the roadside back to Motueka.  If we’d been earlier we would definitely have stopped at the berry shop you pass almost back in the township, but that’s on the list for another day.

Cycling into Motueka, the official trail goes around towards the sea side where you can pass the Motueka shipwreck and not have to contend with traffic, but we didn’t need any more detours at this stage and just cycled down the main road back to the Motueka Top 10 Holiday Park.

Great Taste Trail: Motueka to Kaiteriteri (about 20km)

If you have older kids and want to continue, then officially this section ends at Kaiteriteri which is another 20km.  The trail is pretty flat and easy all the way to Riwaka and then there are a few hills and a harder section that also goes through the Kaiteriteri Mountain Bike Park.

It’s handy that it goes through the MTB park as the road over the hill to Kaiteriteri is quite narrow and windy, with a lot of tourist traffic which could be a little hairy.  The boys actually went back later in the week to cycle here and did some of that Easy Rider trail which they found fun.

But it was definitely enough, stopping at Motueka for our 6 year old.