jafar
19th March 2008, 23:30
Bacon & Eggs for breakfast while looking out over the Hokianga harbour, man life is good, load 'bluey' (cb1300) & down to the gas station. $1.92 per litre :sick: then onto the ferry. They has a bit of a challenge to get everyone on, half the cars had horse floats on & they had all shown up together, course when we show up on the bike it is straight on & park :first:.
The road from the ferry goes straight ahead & there is a road that goes to the left, the horse people were heading left, so we figured we would too, there is a nice church spire that you can see from Rawene that I wanted to have a closer look at, well I somehow missed the turnoff for the church & we ended up half way to Panguru, the horsefloats had been left a long way behind & so had everything else off the ferry.
I was stopped half way up a hill just outside Motuti scratching my head while looking @ the map when a Maori guy stopped in his truck to see if we were ok, he showed us where we were & told us how to get out of there through a little bit of gravel !!! yeah ok his idea of a little bit & mine are are different, he lead the way through to Panguru & waited for us at the turnoff to make sure we were on the right road.
Panguru to Runaruna is all gravel, most of it is in good condition & easy enough to do on a road bike, scenery is excellent & not a car in sight.:niceone:
Runaruna is a crossroad, turn left & your heading to the Whangape Harbour, we turned right & headed towards Awaroa & Wainui Junction, you can really see how Aunty Helen can run a surplus in the treasury when your out here , the road is a disgrace, there are parts where the road has slipped away & all that has been done to fix it is to put up some sticks as a barrier & let the grass grow. :shit:
Ahipara & Shipwreck bay sounded inviting , so hook a left @ the junction & we are there in minutes, quad bikes are available for hire & real coffee @ the cafe too .30+ degrees when we were sitting there too, gets warm up north .
Kaitaia is not one of my favourite places to be so we came in one side & out the other, Awanui is the crossroads for those wanting to head north to the cape or right onto highway 10.We stopped & the coffee shoppe then carried on down highway 10. The vintage car museum is worth a look, it is on your right before Taipa.
Mangonui is a neat place to visit, water to the roads edge & shops out over the water, the fish & chip place is supposed to be ok too,we were more interested in getting batteries for the camera & couldn't find any here, time to go. The next stop was going to be Taupo Bay , but the road came up a bit quick so we settled for Totara North. What a find that is , the road is twisty & leads out to the wharf eventually. The pub is good too , the kitchen was "out of order" when we were there ,standing on the deck over the water watching the fish & eels is a rare experience.
The plan was to stay @ Whangaroa, well the pushbikers had foiled our plans the first night & tonight it was the turn of a local gathering to take up the available motel(s), a wedding + a funeral in this speck of a place had us scratching around for somewhere to stay, luckily we hadn't left it too late & we headed off to Tauranga bay & do the loop back to highway 10 & on into Kerikeri.
Puketona Junction has 2 things to justify its existence, one of these is a motel, booked in & a quick ride to Paihia for dinner, nice ride & great place to visit, excellent food & good company. The ride back to the motel was supurb, nice warm evening just topped off the day.
The road from the ferry goes straight ahead & there is a road that goes to the left, the horse people were heading left, so we figured we would too, there is a nice church spire that you can see from Rawene that I wanted to have a closer look at, well I somehow missed the turnoff for the church & we ended up half way to Panguru, the horsefloats had been left a long way behind & so had everything else off the ferry.
I was stopped half way up a hill just outside Motuti scratching my head while looking @ the map when a Maori guy stopped in his truck to see if we were ok, he showed us where we were & told us how to get out of there through a little bit of gravel !!! yeah ok his idea of a little bit & mine are are different, he lead the way through to Panguru & waited for us at the turnoff to make sure we were on the right road.
Panguru to Runaruna is all gravel, most of it is in good condition & easy enough to do on a road bike, scenery is excellent & not a car in sight.:niceone:
Runaruna is a crossroad, turn left & your heading to the Whangape Harbour, we turned right & headed towards Awaroa & Wainui Junction, you can really see how Aunty Helen can run a surplus in the treasury when your out here , the road is a disgrace, there are parts where the road has slipped away & all that has been done to fix it is to put up some sticks as a barrier & let the grass grow. :shit:
Ahipara & Shipwreck bay sounded inviting , so hook a left @ the junction & we are there in minutes, quad bikes are available for hire & real coffee @ the cafe too .30+ degrees when we were sitting there too, gets warm up north .
Kaitaia is not one of my favourite places to be so we came in one side & out the other, Awanui is the crossroads for those wanting to head north to the cape or right onto highway 10.We stopped & the coffee shoppe then carried on down highway 10. The vintage car museum is worth a look, it is on your right before Taipa.
Mangonui is a neat place to visit, water to the roads edge & shops out over the water, the fish & chip place is supposed to be ok too,we were more interested in getting batteries for the camera & couldn't find any here, time to go. The next stop was going to be Taupo Bay , but the road came up a bit quick so we settled for Totara North. What a find that is , the road is twisty & leads out to the wharf eventually. The pub is good too , the kitchen was "out of order" when we were there ,standing on the deck over the water watching the fish & eels is a rare experience.
The plan was to stay @ Whangaroa, well the pushbikers had foiled our plans the first night & tonight it was the turn of a local gathering to take up the available motel(s), a wedding + a funeral in this speck of a place had us scratching around for somewhere to stay, luckily we hadn't left it too late & we headed off to Tauranga bay & do the loop back to highway 10 & on into Kerikeri.
Puketona Junction has 2 things to justify its existence, one of these is a motel, booked in & a quick ride to Paihia for dinner, nice ride & great place to visit, excellent food & good company. The ride back to the motel was supurb, nice warm evening just topped off the day.