A nice evening ride, Hamilton, Kawhia, Raglan, Hamilton

**Eddieb** · 8th January 2009, 10:17

I'd planned a nice day ride round the Waikato east coast back blocks as despite living in the Waikato for many years I'd never been to Kawhia and always wanted to travel to back road round the coast to Raglan.

Discovering the rear tyre was flat after an attempt at Thompsons track put paid to an early start so after tyre fixing, errands, visiting etc I finally got away late afternoon, leaving a friends in Te Awamutu bang on 5pm.

1) I can't believe I've never ridden the Kawhia road before, mile after mile of sweeping and tight 55km/h twisties. Some stunning views to be had too. Coming into Kawhia a 950 Adventure was heading out not wasting any time.

2) Kawhia is a little seaside bach town, quite a few small fishing boats were anchored just off shore. I suspect the help hadn't turned up at the fish and chip shop as the guy running it was looking very frazzled and wouldn't cook anything that required more than dunking it in a hot vat of oil as he was front of shop and the cook on his own.

3) I took a side road just out of Kawhia and ended up in Aotea. A one road in, one road out old school beach bach village. No shops, servo or anything, just half a dozen streets of small unpretentious bachs. I took the bike down onto the beach and across the water were huge dunes, the only place in NZ I'd seen dunes this big was up near Cape Reinga, I didn't realise they were more this far down.
Thats quarter of the beach in the photo, it's a pretty small beach!

4) There were also nice views to be had on the road out to Aotea

From here I had mapped out a route before leaving that I was confident would keep me on the gravel as much as possible. I wasn't disappointed and if you follow the route below 95% of it is gravel, all of which I'd rate as easy.

5) Raglan Road was smooth and in very good order. In fact a lot better than the goat tracks Transit try and pass off as sealed local highways.

Raglan Road took me to MakaMako where I changed to Kawhia Road then Te Papatapu Road through to Te Mata.

6) At Te Mata I did a small diversion and headed up to Bridal Veil Falls as I'd never there either.

**Eddieb** · 8th January 2009, 10:29

1) I carried up past Bridal Veil Falls just to see where the road went and found this almost picture perfect view over a lake.

Back to Te Papatapu Road and I turned left onto to Waimaori Road. Waimaori Road was great, fast ish corners with some decent straights were you could open it up. Right onto Matawhai road, right again onto Tuturimu Road then left onto Ruapuke Road brought me onto the coast road that leads all the way to Raglan, the name changes several times on the way but it's the same road.

This road has you changing constantly from rugged farmland to bush to coastal hilltop so has lots of variation and keeps things interesting. It's also quite twisty but the surface is generally good. Further towards Raglan you do get a few rocks sticking up into the road but nothing major.

2) Time was getting on and the sun started to set, giving the surroundings an eerie tint.

3) With views to had round almost every corner

4) Motorcycle shadow art

5 & 6) The sun set was impressive

**Eddieb** · 8th January 2009, 10:38

By the time I got to Raglan all the takeaways had closed and I didn't want to do the flash cafe/restaurant thing, even if they let a greasy dusty biker in so headed straight back to Hamilton over the deviation.

A good ride and I discovered some great roads I hadn't seen before. The plan had originally been to keep going up to Port Waikato but given how time had worked out thats saved for another day.

I have a tracklog in GPX format, it can be loaded into gpx supporting gps units, or Google Earth allows you to import it and see where I went. PM me email if you're interested as I can't load it here.

**Aslan** · 9th January 2009, 10:01

thanks for taking the time to post all of this in a report Eddie - sounds as though you had a great ride - fantastic pics - catch you later Aslan

**Paladin** · 9th January 2009, 10:18

Looks like that was a great day out Eddie & nice pics! Happy New Year mate! Glad you're havin some nice rides on your time away!

**cave weta** · 9th January 2009, 11:09

I did pretty much the same route just before christmas in my 4X4 it was awesome!

Now I have my XLV750R I will be expanding on that ride- there are just so many options and the road is deserted. None of those nasty rutted out corners that the campervans and cars towing boat trailers leave.

Well done Eddie B you have left us a good trail to follow-

Onething you didnt mention was that lookout about 15km before Whale Bay raglan. Te Toto Gorge- the land just drops into the sea in a spectaculaar Tolkien landscape. they have built a viewing platform that sticks right out over the edge!- even better that thatone at the top of bridal viel falls.

**dino3310** · 9th January 2009, 11:21

nice one dude.
crisismanagement's doing a ride next wednesday you might be interseted in if your around.
i've been in Ham's around 5 years and i'm only just starting to ride these coastal roads, wish i started doing it sooner theres a lot of primo day rides.
http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/sh...ad.php?t=89766

**tri boy** · 11th January 2009, 14:11

Nice report Eddieb.
Keep your monitor peeled for up n coming Kawhia o/nighter adv rides in 09.

**Eddieb** · 12th January 2009, 09:54

Originally Posted by tri boy

Nice report Eddieb.
Keep your monitor peeled for up n coming Kawhia o/nighter adv rides in 09.

I'm back in Welly now, was only let loose in the Waikato for a few weeks so unfortunately I won't be able to make any rides.

**jonnyk5614** · 28th September 2016, 17:14

Was eyeing up these back ways to Raglan as I have a couple of days off before I lose my license next week

How do you think they'll be on a Hayabusa? All nice and easy gravel or am I going to struggle?

**haydes55** · 28th September 2016, 17:55

Originally Posted by jonnyk5614

Was eyeing up these back ways to Raglan as I have a couple of days off before I loose my license next week

How do you think they'll be on a Hayabusa? All nice and easy gravel or am I going to struggle?

Just keep her below 80km/h on gravel and you'll be fine.

**Scubbo** · 28th September 2016, 18:44

the recent downpour is gonna have killed the raglan>kawhia road (can't remember what its called) will be pretty washboardy, last summer was pretty bad and it had been graded that weekend >_>

**Oscar** · 29th September 2016, 08:49

The lake is Lake Disappear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Disappear

You're very lucky, I've seen it twice in the 30 years I've been riding out there.

This is what it usually looks like:

And I caught it full a coupla years back:

Also, despite the "Road Closed" sign just past Bridal Veil Falls, that road is open and comes out before the Mako Mako Marae.