Auckland to Rotorua...Best bike route??

**Maha** · 13th April 2006, 17:05

Go with Keystone, that seems the more senic route, would be a hell neat ride fur sure, straight down the middle is mostly farms......

**Phurrball** · 20th April 2006, 10:54

Righto,

a quick tour report:

Thank you all so much for your suggestions!

We were pretty late leaving after dealing with our cat (her accomodation cost....ours did not!) and our greater than usual aversion to the AM hours.

We took the Ohinewai-Tahuna-Morrinsville-Matamata-Te Poi route to Rotorua.

Had the route all written out and stuck on the tank. Cunning I thought...this was good, until open road speed demonstrated that insulation-tape-you-find lying-around is NOT sufficient to hold on to paper in all that wind.

Crippled chicken impression ensued to prevent loss of route page: right hand steering and holding throttle, left 'wing' in a spastic position holding paper under arm while undoing pocket and uncerimoniously shoving route page in. Lesson learned.

Disaster averted (I did have the NZ motorcycle touring atlas with me as back up.)

All went swimmingly...until it got dark. Without the route in front of me, my navigational ineptitude came to the fore: took a slight wrong turn heading through Te Poi. It seemed that all roads were determined to take us to Hamilton. It was sucking us in like a giant magnet.

Referer to map, find ourselves going through Tirau, then off to Rotovegas on SH5 via some roadworks that were rather disturbing after dark...

We had planned to return via SH22, but ended up going back the same way, so 22 will have to wait for another day.

Was great to feel smug going in both directions splitting through stationary cars in places on SH1. Hurrah!

Greatly enjoyed travelling by bike - limited luggage space makes you think about your packing. Mrs P even managed to find a 'travel' hairdryer for such occasions. Next time we must remember how damned cold it gets in the central NI after dark at this time of the year and travel soley by daylight!

Phurrball/Ross