Gremlin's Tall Stories

Well I never got as far as Kawhia, but I digress when the blog has barely begun.

The plan was to base myself out of Raglan for Christmas-New Year break, tracking all the roads for accuracy for the open source maps and generally enjoy going down every road and see where it took me. Raglan to Kawhia would normally take around 1-1.5 hours and about 50km, with a lot of that being gravel and slow going – especially if a graded had just been through.

I’ve only done the route once before, on my KTM 990SM and indeed the grader had been busy and it was hard going on road biased tyres and 17 inch rims. Doing every road in between, I had no idea if I’d ever get as far as Kawhia as I didn’t know what I’d encounter, how tough it might get and when you’re doing every road, time passes with minimal km covered.

The weather forecast looked ominous, with severe weather watches coming so I knew my time was limited and I wouldn’t get the several days of exploring I had planned.

I headed south from Raglan on New Years Eve around midday and simply headed along the coast. I was in a pile of traffic, but by the time I hit the gravel I was alone with everyone turning off for something. The initial gravel was very narrow and winding, and to recommend this road as a touring route for tourists… mmm probably not the best idea.

Still, once I got out from the forest and it opened out, I got treated to the views I was hoping for

From there I dropped down to the coast several times for beach access roads to find more people.

Not what I was after I continued until I found the first intersection that went back to tar. Now I had more decisions to make. Namely, to try and run the roads in the order I had roughly planned, to try and cover them all without too much back tracking.

Some cows in a field seemed quite taken with a very large chook chaser visiting them.

I swung past Bridal Veil falls on Kawhia Rd, but with the temperature in the high 20s I didn’t feel too motivated to be walking in full gear and instead wanted some gravel and mapping errors. Kawhia Rd had been closed previously due to a slip and there were several sets of No Exit signs at the northern end with a road closed orange sign at the southern end… except the road was quite passable. However, the open source maps did have this all tagged as sealed, which it definitely wasn’t.

The BMWOR forum has a thread for abandoned buildings, so I couldn’t pass up this one

During my exploring I was a bit doubtful that a piece of road I was on was actually public, but at that point I was finding some farm buildings and a farmer comes racing around the corner towards me on his bike. There is just a slight contrast between his singlet, shorts and sunnies to my full Revit outfit, boots and helmet, but we trade a few words, I enquire about the terrain and he asks me how I find such a large bike on the roads. I explain that his will float over terrain much better than mine, and I have to deal with wheel spin at 100kph but horses for courses and it can do other stuff as well.

I find Tipperary somewhere in the back country, so contrary to what my mother taught me… it actually isn’t a long way after all…

I found myself back on seal and heading into Raglan a bit too early for my liking but it was a nice view for sure

I went down the road until it turned to 50kph (near the golf course) and then swung a u-turn as that section of sealed road is pretty mint indeed Heading back into the gravel and I’m starting to get a little too comfortable. I know I can’t exit corners in first and open the throttle unless I want the two ends of the beemer wanting to negotiate their respective locations… and quickly at that. 2nd is better but won’t last too long and I need to short shift to 3rd. If the road is a little more open and I don’t have a corner to slow for, then wheel spin continues through 3rd and into 4th if I’m game for it and by now I’m starting to approach 100kph.

Hanging off the bike to try and keep it going in the correct direction is fun, but I’m reminded this is no dirt bike when I accidentally back it into one corner and suddenly it feels like a quarter of a ton again.

So in the end, only 180km ish of exploring taking me about 6-7 hours but I put the ride firmly in the “Fuck Yeah” category having thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon. While I can have days of hundreds of kilometres, I equally enjoy poking my nose down a road and seeing where it goes.

Later that evening there was even a stunning sunset so here’s a bonus pic

Finally, since it’s New Years Eve (and Happy New Year all you crazy buggers that read my occasional ramblings) Raglan puts on a fireworks display, so here’s a couple of the best I managed. Here’s to another awesome year of riding in 2016!

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