Waikato scooter rides?

[Moi]

Enjoyed reading your report. It's a great part of the country to explore. Yes, scooter travel is so enjoyable: get to see stuff the crotchrocket boys don't know exists! And people wave to you when you're on a scooter out in the country - "Can that thing go on the open road?" Joining you would have been fun except for the camping bit - don't do camping anymore!

As for Unstuck - sleeping under a fly - been kicked out of the dog house?

[awa355]

Good stuff fella. Great report again. They must be breeding them soft up there now, I just spent 3 nights in below zero conditions around the helen peaks area in a tent fly, and it wasnt too bad.

Does ' Hooch' grow in zero degree temps??

[unstuck]

No weed growing operations were undertaken on this trip, mostly rock climbing and exploring for gold and other precious minerals.
Most of the weekend was spent above 1000mtrs.

[awa355]

One of my great grand uncles lived and mined at Nasby through the 30-60's. He is buried at Nasby. I want to come down that way next year and find his grave. I believe he used to work the rivers, he never married and died in 1968, without finding his fortune.

[awa355]

Hey Mate, Great report. Thanks for the story and the pics. Have done those Waikato roads and the Coro Loop on my road bike before but have never stopped to take in the scenery or pics you you have, well done.
What sort of road speed were you able to maintain on the scooter and did you have any hassles with the traffic in general?
Cheers

Cruising on the road would be around the 80 kph range. Even on the long climbs the scooter might fall back to about 50-60 but only one short steep hill had me dropping down much further. I gave up on the " big hp, big balls" atitude years ago. I do miss the power of a bike but I've adjusted to, what I own is what I ride. I sold the big bike last year to find some finance to help our son out.

The traffic; I just pull onto the shoulder and let them go. The 2 stroke simply hums along, no vibration, quite quiet, I just sit in my comfort zone and enjoy the ride. A lot of the tight stuff, I would go round easier than my big heavy cruiser would've done. Changing lines and cornering on a scooter can be different to a proper motorbike. The front wheel is just in front of the handlebars and being a 10" it can change direction so quick.

The Yamaha has done almost 8,000k now and is still running the original spark plug. I run it on Castrol Activ 2t mineral oil. ( can buy it at any repco or warehouse ) The bike doesn't smoke or bog down under load at all. The seat is the best of any bike in recent years. I can do 300k in a day without getting a numb bum. With having had a lower back disc problem, I find the sit up position far better than having to stretch forward like some riding styles.

[unstuck]

One of my great grand uncles lived and mined at Nasby through the 30-60's. He is buried at Nasby. I want to come down that way next year and find his grave. I believe he used to work the rivers, he never married and died in 1968, without finding his fortune.

Great wee place nasby. I used to spend a bit of time fossicking around that area. Some good gold has come out of there over the years.

[awa355]

Well, I've got my next big idea ticking over. On the ADVrider forum in the NZ section the Taranaki riders are talking of a cape to cape ride this Labour weekend. One suggestion was to start with the sunrise on the east coast and finish with the sunset on the western coast. The organisers will do their run from west to east, so I thought, the sunrise to sunset ride would be an interesting challenge on a scooter.

Looked at the lighthouse on the east coast to the lighthouse out from New Plymouth but with that much country to cover, it would be a shame to race through and not take the opportunity to see the country. So a shorter coast to coast would still be an interesting day ride.

So it is Whakatane to Taharoa / Marakopa at this stage. Will ride west via Rotorua, Atiamuri Te Kuiti. I will need to scan the maps to find roads that keep me off the highways as much as possible.

I will look at a date in October, possibly the 12-13th. My weekend off in Sept is tied up, so it will have to be October, unless I use my days off during the weekdays of September. Wont camp out on this trip. I will leave Te A about midnight and travel east, get a bit of kip when there, Photograph the sunrise, and then make my way across to the west coast. From there It will be a short run back home.



Something to plan for.

[craisin]

smoking weed is so old school
all the get ahead set are smoking dick and the behive is not out of bounds

i use stationary engine oil as it has heat tolerance for a 4 stroke

[awa355]

My next decent ride is going to be as in my previous post. Ride to Whakatane, photograph the sunrise, then return via Murapara, Waiteti valley, Ohakuri dam, Tirohanga/Kaahu rds. Across to TeKuiti, out to Taharoa beach to photograph the sunset.

Lots of back roads and scenery. I hope to do this run either October or early November. I will try for a window of fine weather and light clouds to get some nice photos.

Would enjoy having other scooter riders join in. It will be a long day and involve some night riding at both ends.

[awa355]

Woke up to a lovely clear day, not a cloud. Just right for a ' short ' run to give Buggsys battery a charge up. I had wanted to have a ride through some of the back roads between Kawhia and Waitomo. After filling the spare gas container Buggsy and I left Te A along Pokuru road, finding my way across onto the Kawhia road. I turned left into Turitea road. 8k of easy winding flat road then right into Honikiwi rd.

Lots of corners as this road climbs through the hill country that continues out to the coast. This road is sealed for about 10ks and has a good sealed surface, fairly narrow but lots of lovely farmland.

After the sealed surface came the gravel. The country also changed from farmland to pine forests and native reserves. This stretch had also just been re metalled recently. Hence very thick loose metal to slow Buggsy up a wee tad. This section is pretty much one lane wide but we never met any other vehicle so had no dramas.

At the end of Honikiwi rd I had a choice. Right into Kaimango rd and more gravel, or left into Kaimango rd and even more metal. Left it was. This road is more a limestone base and being hard and smooth, we barreled along stopping to take a number of photos, Had I turned right, back at the Honikiwi/Kaimango junction, I would have come out on the Kawhia road.

A bit further along, this stream seemed to disappear under the rocks.

All this country is sitting on limestone rock as seen in the photos. It must have been hard going for the original settlers and being dry stock farming, probably isn't too easy to farm in todays economic times.

The end of Kaimango rd saw a return to a sealed surface.

From this point is a 5k ride along the Hauturu road untill we met the Harbour road. As I can only load 6 photos in a post, I'll finish my tale in the following post.

[Moi]

You definitely got the better deal - riding those roads is much more fun than marking maths tests...

Tomorrow weeding and spraying??

[awa355]

From the junction of Hauturu and Harbour road Buggsy flicked from adventure mode into sports mode. After the 35-40ks of unsealed roads it was great to wind up and start playing the 'boy racer' bit. As always there can be corners where the light rocks and gravel wash down off the banks onto the road. The tide was on the way out as seen here.

A short run along Harbour road and we turned right into Te Waitere road. This was a road that I have always ridden past while on the bigger bikes. After 6k of more corners Buggsy and I arrived at the city of Te Waitere. Coming down to the wharf I saw a bike and two riders ahead of me. I thought I reconized the blue/black jackets. They thought they had seen Buggsy before. On my Coromandel loop ride back in July, I had stopped to get a photo and two riders were parked at that same spot. The same husband/wife combo. We chatted for a while. It turned out their next stop was like mine, Taharoa. As there wasn't much other than mudflats to look at, it was a quick cup of tea and look around, then back on the bike.

Another back road was Whakapirau rd. Smooth gravel and about 8k long. Not very far from there to Taharoa. Through the village and onto yet more gravel. This was the roughest stretch of gravel on the entire trip. About 4 k and a stop at the lookout over the beach. Anchored out off the coast was an iron ore ship. I'm not sure, but believe the ore is pumped out to the waiting ships via an under water pipeline. Up behind the park area was a Cat D11 tractor.



After sizing each other up, the two heavyweights had a pow wow about horsepower and machine talk and stuff.

Actually it was in a spot of bother, Under the rear end was a cutdown 44gal drum full of oil.

From Taharoa we cruised on back. The clouds had closed in a bit and as the country back through to Waitomo was much of what has already been posted, I didn't stop for any more photos. The Waitomo road was brilliant. Winding Buggsy up and rockin thru' the corners was a buzz. Stopped at the village for a stretch, I realised just how small that front brake disc is on the scooter, and it had been getting a good workout. Back home via the Waitomo valley road and home to a hot tongue and cold bum. " Thought you were only going for a short ride" Well, it was only a smidgen over 200 kilometers.

I have done the Kawhia / Habour rd / Waitomo run many times but never looked at the other ride options in that area. There is always another road to discover. My proposed jaunt as mentioned in post #39 may have to wait untill December now. I'm off to Dunedin early November so need to build up the Brownie points for that ride.

About 45ks of todays ride was on gravel.

[awa355]

You definitely got the better deal - riding those roads is much more fun than marking maths tests...

Tomorrow weeding and spraying??

Nah, cleaning the scooter.

[Moi]

Nah, cleaning the scooter.

To which I responded with a hearty laugh and a "bugger the weeds"...

[awa355]

To which I responded with a hearty laugh and a "bugger the weeds"...

I did the spraying this morning, and dug the garden plots over. The cleaning of the scooter will have to wait. I have another little run arranged for tomorrow, down to PioPio.