More_fasterer's first NZ tour - to the Burt Munro & back

**more_fasterer** · 5th December 2007, 09:37

I hope you're comfortable, because reading these posts may take up a lot of time. Consider yourself warned.

So, on sunday 18th of november I began my trip with a leisurely pootle down to Tauranga. Riding over the bombays behind a queue of cars travelling at 100km/h, I was thinking "yeah boy! I'm leaving Auckland for 2 weeks". At that point, 4 cars in front of me a car goes completely sideways across both lanes of traffic before nosing into the median barrier.

I felt very vulnerable at that point - and was fortunate that everyone behaved like they actually knew how to drive - braking swiftly but not in a panic and all moved around the car in a line after checking the way was clear. How very un-Auckland.

With the nerves reset, I continued to Tauranga. I stopped in to see MadAndy and a very front-heavy MadSharon. Got a text from him this morning to say that she had given birth to their very healthy first son, Miles. Congratulations!

The following day (monday) I left Tauranga very late (1pm) on my way around the east cape to Gisborne. The weather had already set a precedent for the entire trip - fine and clear. This pic was taken between Matata and Whakatane:

After filling up at Opotiki I headed out to east cape, thinking that Te Araroa would be within easy reach, being 160km away (my NC30 does 200km's to a tank). The roads & countryside were deserted - this is about as busy as it got:

I easily made it to Te Araroa, but it was 6:15pm and the general store / gas station had closed at 6. The owner, who was taking the tank readings at the time, refused to open up one of the pumps even for an extra $20. Bastard.

He eventually brushed me off by saying I could try to make it to Ruatoria as there would be an open gas station there. This turned out to be a bare-faced lie. I set off on the 45km trip to Ruatoria and only just made it there - the bike died rolling into town. I found that the gas station there was closed too, and started panicking at the thought of being stuck in Ruatoria for a night. Fortunately, the barman at the Ruatoria tavern next to the gas station was able to help me and opened up a pump for an extra $10. I offered him $20 but he refused it. By that stage I decided that it would be a good idea to wash the relief down with a Steiny pure. The only customers in the bar were me and two farmers.

After saying thank you (again) to the barman I headed for my uncle's house, 15km south of Gisborne. By the time I got there it was well & truly dark and, having never been to Tony's house before, I rode straight past it. 35km's straight past it. I only managed to get 15km's closer to Tony's house before I ran out of gas - AGAIN!!

So he had to come and get me with his ute. By now it was 11pm and he'd been up since 4am spraying his orchard. Sorry uncle Tony, you'll be getting a big christmas present from your nephew this year...

Tuesday, the goal was Welly. The roads between Gisborne and the Hawke's bay were great fun; this picture was taken about 10km south of Wairoa and you can see the entire bay curving round in the distance.

Being sure to not repeat the mistakes of the previous day, I ended up making quite good time down through the Hawke's bay and Wairarapa - here I had paused for a break a few km's short of Dannevirke.

I finished off the ride to Welly with a fantastic carve down the Rimutaka hill road with the sun just dipped behind the hills.

Wednesday largely consisted of milling around in Welly waiting for the others to finish their all-day slog from Auckland. The goal was Blenheim, which after a smooth ferry crossing (with 40 other bikes) we almost got to without trouble - Jason's ZXR800 ran out of gas 1km short of Blenheim! This earned him the right to wear the high-vis "vest of shame" the following day, kindly donated to us by ACC

**more_fasterer** · 5th December 2007, 09:38

Thursday consisted of riding from Blenheim to lake Tekapo. We began the day with a decent breakfast; the temperature was already up over 20 degrees.

After travelling down the coast to Kaikoura and stopping off to club some seals on the way (p/t) we hit the inland Kaikoura route, which was a great road but 28+ degrees got a bit much in full riding gear. We then made our way onto scenic route 72 towards Methven and Geraldine, which was largely flat and boring. Our resident police officer, Nick, decided to make things a bit more interesting for himself by pulling, in his words, a "crap wheelie" - not noticing the patrol car on the side of the road til after. Oops. He subsequently got pulled over of course, only to encounter the worst kind of police officer - the pommy ex-pat traffic cop. Apparently this cop's face was priceless when he got to the "occupation" part of the ticket and Nick told him what he did for a living. That was as far as it got, and we had a new contender for the vest of shame the next day.

It would've been around 8pm by the time we rolled into lake Tekapo, still with plenty of light left:

Our goal for friday was mighty Invergiggle. After the visual delights of lake Pukaki and the fun of the Lindis pass, we encountered the only rain of the entire trip - between Gore and Invercargill.

The saturday of the Burt Munro festival was cloudy but dry, and there were races at Teretonga to be watched. When we got out there I found that for $20 I could have half a dozen laps with bikes in a track-day format. Didn't need to think about that one for long. The track was an absolute ball, and because you feel so much safer on the track you can push the bike that much harder. I was very mindful of crashing - it was a long way home from there!
While watching the races I happened across McJim's Seicento SS, but as I couldn't see a loon running around in a kilt, had no idea who to introduce myself to.

On sunday we went for a leisurely ride out to Bluff for lunch in a very heavy southwest wind. I'm pleased to note that I began this calendar year by going to Cape Reinga on Jan 2nd, and finished it off by riding to the other end of the country; having never gone to either location before.

Later that day we went and had a look at Burt Munro's bikes - you'd think they'd be in a museum, but they were down the back of a Hammer Hardware, between the lawnmowers and the weed whackers!

**more_fasterer** · 5th December 2007, 09:41

Monday dawned cool but dry and we made our way north-west to Te Anau and Milford Sound. After the drudgery of southland we stopped briefly beside lake Te Anau before hitting the real road of Fiordland.

As we progressed into Fiordland the weather cleared and we began the process of staring in ever-greater awe at the scenery, necessitating more and more stops to take it all in! If you've never been to Fiordland, go. These photos will explain why:

About 5km's short of the homer tunnel:

**more_fasterer** · 5th December 2007, 09:45

The entrance to the homer tunnel - can't say I've mucked around in snow with my riding gear on before!

The homer tunnel itself was a hairy experience - it's quite a steep descent heading towards Milford sound, and the tunnel isn't concrete lined which means there's stones & water landing on you from the roof and all kinds of rubble on the road. So on the way back Matt & I did our best to increase the friction coefficient of the surface by laying some rubber down

Milford sound - incredible:

Our goal for Tuesday was to back-track to Te Anau (not a lot of choice there) and then head north through Queenstown and Wanaka to Haast. On our way to Queenstown we stopped off to admire the Kingston flyer (an old-fashioned steam train in immaculate condition that gets used daily) and afterwards hit the Crown Range rd between Queenstown & Wanaka. This was the best road of the trip - 15km/h uphill hairpins (trickier if you're going the other way) open up into perfectly radiused turns of every speed up to flat out (i.e. 100km/h) sweepers. The surface was immaculate and there was no traffic. We stopped for lunch at the famous Cardrona hotel with the adrenaline pumping, before continuing to Lake Wanaka:

From there we headed north past Lake Hawera to the Haast pass, another good road:

**more_fasterer** · 5th December 2007, 09:50

We woke on Wednesday to find that we would have to deal with this weather the whole time we were on the west coast. Bugger.

SH6 was fun in these conditions, but it was at its best between the glaciers. After stopping off in Hokitika we headed inland toward the famed Arthur's pass via Kumara junction.
Arthur's pass was another superb section of road, if the last time you went on this road was more than 10 years ago then it has changed considerably to be much safer yet plenty of fun.

Our goal that night was Hanmer springs, where we enjoyed a well-earned simmer in the hot pools.

**SDU** · 5th December 2007, 09:53

Great write up & Piccies. Keep it coming

**more_fasterer** · 5th December 2007, 09:55

Thursday we hit the lewis pass for a very important destination - the Monteith's brewery.

The lewis pass was a real let down - straight, flat and very poorly surfaced. The Monteith's brewery was anything but - $25 gave us a tour of the brewery, 2 pints at the brewery, a free shuttle to the biggest bar in town and another free pint & BBQ dinner waiting for us upon our arrival. Subsequent pints were cheap, so it was not really surprising when we all felt decidedly average the next day!

That didn't stop us from riding to Nelson though, as it was nothing that a hearty (in the cardiac sense of the word) fry-up breakfast couldn't solve. The buller gorge and roads either side were fantastic, once again well surfaced, well designed and twisty. We saw 100's of bikes in that area over the course of the day. We went through the day before the traffic cop took out 2 bikes.

Saturday's ride from Nelson to Picton took the Queen Charlotte drive through the sounds, another shining example of NZ's natural beauty. QC drive has a 50km/h speed limit for most of its length and you'd be struggling to hit that speed - it's that twisty. Add in the potholes, corrugations, gravel and of course the stunning scenery and the speed limit makes sense.

Fortunately, my goal for the day was Wellington - most of the others were slightly more unhinged and just wanted to go home (why??) and made a beeline for Auckland as soon as we got off the ferry at 4:30pm. I met up with my mate who had flown down to Welly to watch some posh git kick a ball around the caketin. Having never experienced a night out on the town in Welly, I was amazed how busy it was - and the atmosphere shamed that of Auckland (not hard).

Waking up late on Sunday I then decided that, seeing as I couldn't postpone it any longer, I had to go home. So back up & over the Rimutaka's, then onto the back roads between Martinborough & Masterton to keep things interesting. After rejoining SH2 I then deviated off it again at Pahiatua to take the twisty Pahiatua track towards Palmy, then SH54 through Fielding and up to Vinegar hill & Hunterville; followed by the boring slog home up SH4 & SH3.

I arrived home around 10pm to find a stop-start traffic jam running the length of the harbour bridge; I had to get off & back on the motorway 3 times between spaghetti junction and tristram ave. Man it felt good to be home!

**98tls** · 5th December 2007, 10:27

Best road trip write up i have read on here,and awsome pics to boot.Well done i really enjoyed that.Makes me want to drag the bike out of the garage and head over the coast.

**EJT** · 5th December 2007, 20:38

Great write up and pictures. My mate has been raving on about his trip down south. Looks like he wasn't exaggerating

**SwanTiger** · 5th December 2007, 20:55

Mint write up! Sounds like you paced yourself and enjoyed every minute.

**N1CK** · 5th December 2007, 21:01

Yea great write up. Can't wait to get a bigger bike, so I can do some of that myself.

**clint640** · 11th December 2007, 14:49

Originally Posted by N1CK

Yea great write up. Can't wait to get a bigger bike, so I can do some of that myself.

Meant in the nicest possible way... HTFU!!!

Your VTR is a great rig for touring NZ! get out there & do it!

Great writeup & pics more_fasterer! You really know that the motorcycling gods are smiling on you when you get a fine run the whole length of the West Coast!

Clint