Caution !! Lots of pics to follow
Saturday morning duly arrived and I set of earlyish to make the rendezvous at Cape Egmont for the ride. I wasn't first, but wasn't last as well
Pretty soon everyone was there...
and I picked up a companion/navigator... Meet BACON !!
He left Melbourne around 7 yrs ago and he's been travelling the globe ever since. Full story here >> http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=287919 I hope we get on
Looks like UmoPom is having concerns about his bike, should be more worried about the GPS.
The day started with a really nice ride around some twisty seal part way up the mountain. Then it was into Egmont village for gas.
Followed by some some more seal and a bit of gravel through to Whangamomona and the forgotten highway. We managed to get past a couple of other riders here, they were having breakfast/smoko in the pub. Bacon and I cruised on following a random selection of roads. Here's part of Opotiki rd, which happens to be no where near Opotiki
We had a little trouble here with the end of one track/route and selecting which one was next. Pretty soon we were joined by another rider, the one we went past going the other way earlier Pretty soon Rosie showed up who actually knows how to use one of these devil box's, and we set off again up Ongarue Waimiha rd. and some more back roads.
We went through Pureora forest somehow, going to the geographic centre of the North Isl.
Then made or way to Whakamaru village and a Veeeery late lunch stop...It's a long way between coffee stops Very unsociable
The others were just finishing theirs so it was a rather quick stop before we followed along. Once again I'm not sure exactly where we went but figured we were on the right track, so long as we kept Boxabits in sight sort of This was somewhere between Whakamaru village and Rotorua
We saw Boxabits parked up next to a lake so figured I stop too and take a pic
We soon saddled up and headed along the purple line (refered to as the p.l. from here ) on the screen, pretty soon I hung a right, following the line and lost B.B.
We waited here, ready to get a shot of him with a knee down on the super tanker, definitely pic of the week material, sadly, his purple line differed to mine and he never showed
Nevermind, we were getting along o.k. and developing a certain sense of trust, so we carried on. Through more cool, flowing forestry roads. All was good with the world
Then..... as we made to go left at a fork in the road, following the p.l. we were waved down by a couple of o.a.p's in a willys jeep who said "Dont go that way, the other bikes went that way" pointing to the right I explained about the p.l., Bacon just shrugged so we went right.
We ended up at lake Rotoehu, a bit confused about where to go next, Bacon did his best to figure it out
But I made an executive decision to hit the seal and head for Kawerau and our digs for the night, although I didn't really know where they were
It's all good though, I ran into another couple of riders as we were heading in the wrong direction and got where we needed to be
A fine Indian meal followed and some interesting taxi service
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