gijoe1313's Blogs

Well as part of my plan to do my usual business of riding whenever, where-ever and however - I took Cindi my CB1000R Predator up to Cape Reinga today. The last time Cindi and I were closest to the Cape was when we accompanied Gremlin to Dargaville. This first mission was a failure due to the usual tardiness of Gremlin.

Today, we remedied that! I was up at 6am .... brekkie and prep saw me bolt out the door at 7.15am and we were away riding! Did the back roads to SH16 and the boring straights to Dargaville. I wanted to do the Waipoua forest and the back track to the Cape.

Weather was mint, roads were the usual collection of sublime to the ridiculous. My KNOX chest armour got a work out towards the cape when a whole swarm of insects decided to kamikaze in my direction!

Since Gremlin has already done the travelogue, I decided to take a different tack and took some pictures instead! Also unlike, gremlin and TOTO doing it at night - the benefits of having it done in the day meant I could actually scoot Cindi up the lighthouse in my usual tradition of taking piccies!

No one around, was bloody marvellous! The lack of gravel seemed to be a bit of an anti-climax. When it was there, it felt like an accomplishment. Now anyone can easily get there! Also, by the amount of crazy driving I saw from the few munters - I think there will be an increase in accidents there! The gravel put people on the alert and made them take their time. Now, it's chocks away and put the pedal to the metal!

The way back home was around the other side of the North Island, SH10 to Kerikeri and rejoining SH1 to Wellsford for the last hurrah back on SH16. Plenty of bikers were outgoing as I was coming back! Also ... two incidents of idiots in vehicles almost done for me. One was on the complete wrong side of the road coming around a blind corner (I tend to hug left for this sort of thing arising), the other was a munter that overtook a car to scream into a side road. I was already slowing down and hitting the picks when I saw the strange light patterns occurring. I had hit the horn ... but just the stock one ... will install the Steble ASAP tomorrow! Apart from that, everything was tickety-boo! Oh, Cindi now has 5400km on the clock now ... she's a right goer this one is ... nudge nudge wink wink!

This is a ride report thread with some other piccies http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/sh...es-to-the-Cape!

Pic 1 : This is the shop where TOTO and I last ate a hearty dinner from a ride we did sometime last year
Pic 2 : Cindi showing off her bits
Pic 3 : At Kaipara, the best thing is the fruit people on the packing warehouse! The green one reminds me of TOTO ...
Pic 4 : The obligatory shot of Tane Mahuta in the Waipoua Forest. The tourists there were a bit ... surprised by a red camo ninja!
Pic 5 : Cindi getting in a bit of sunbathing at Omapere
Pic 6 : Len's pies .. I scoffed down a mince n'cheese one while having a yarn with a local who owns a 900 Hornet. We swapped war stories!