TOTO

Thursday – Auckland to Wellington

Day 1 of our trip was the Auckland to Picton stretch. Gremlin and I were originally planning to leave at about 8-9am in order to catch the ferry at 6:25. Given the change in circumstances and equipment I decided that it is going to be a wise idea if I left a little bit earlier to give myself and the GN some time in case we weren't able to move the same speed at Gremlins brand new BMW. How right was I.

Leaving at 6am with the bike fully loaded. Two full panniers, pack rack bag filled to the top and a 10L gas can strapped to the back seat meant that the GN had just enough room for a person my size to fit in it, and that’s it. Ho problem though, this hasn't stopped me riding even smaller bikes in the past. Getting out of Auckland was not a big problem as traffic was light. I don't really remember the leaving too much also as I was on a high, and was already thinking of wellington and the ferry in a few hours time.

Turned out that the bike fully loaded and me on top was not able to climb hills at a high rate of speed. Come to think of it, even going down the steep hills was limited to pretty much 75-80km/h if there was oncoming wind. Cruising speed on the flat was about 96km/h and if there was a severe head wind it could drop down to 40km/h. With the small tank on the GN (10.3L) I was able to do anywhere between 130 – 190kms distance depending on the head wind, but I usually had to fill up about the 140km mark. That meant that I was going to get plenty of stops and a chance to change position from the crammed environment of the GN. The first three fuel stops were a really short stopping time of about 2-3 minutes each – enough to fill the tank, pay for the gas, have some water and back on the bike.

Throughout the entire ride Gremlin and I were in constant contact with GiJoe1313 as he was a sort of mission control and was also to coordinate search and rescue plans should we got in danger of being eaten, shark attack or if we were unlucky enough to be involved in earthquake (given that the TT was only a week or so after the Christchurch earthquake). So we kept in touch and made sure GiJoe knew roughly where Gremlin and I are.

On the way down I stumbled upon a group of 3 riders that were going down to the TT as well. It is funny though how even riding the GN long distance, our pace was about the same. It appears that being a lone rider you know how much stop you need and how fast you can move off the bike, where in a group it seemed those folks were always so slow off the bikes, despite consistently overtaking the GN.

I made it to “66 on 1” - American style diner with fantastic burgers around 99km away from Wellington. There was a reason why I hadn't eaten anything since 6am in the morning in Auckland, and it was so I can take full advantage of the “66 on 1” delicious menu. Seeing that I didn't have breakfast that day and I have always been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so I ordered the all day breakfast – regardless it was already 3:30pm - with extra hash brown, plus a giant American style burger. I very much enjoy the simple pleasures in life –and you can tell

5pm and I had my ferry ticket, passed checking in and was waiting patiently in the hot heat for the doors of the ferry to open. After about 15 minutes quietly boiling in my cordura gear, I braved myself and stripped for the people around in order to get into my Draggin jeans. Man was it worth it. 5:30 pm and the gremlin appears on his shiny Apache helicopter with a pet name Jessica. I told him that Helga suits the BMW more as it was more German, but he still wouldn't have it.

1 hour waiting to get on the ferry was nicely filled with plenty of motorcycle trash talk, expectations from the trip and plenty of Honda jokes. Gremlin was very proud of his new toy being able to do from Auckland to wellington with no fill ups and also that he left Auckland later than expected and still made it on time – bastard

Made to Picton all good, disembarked the ferry and thankfully to Gremlins good planning we were in our motel 3 minutes later. Received a TXT from GiJoe to not brake anything, as both gremlin and I seem to have a habit of braking or damaging stuff that does not belong to us. It was to be no different this time…