Well I'm unfortunate enough to be on leave from work at the mo!
So on Tuesday 28th november I decided to head off on a 'Tiki tour'
I got up nice an early 06:00am and packed my shit together and headed off, I had no real plan or route decided other than heading off to Gisborne. From there I was to play it by ear.
I eventually hit the road at 08:00am and headed for Tauranga, my initial thought had been to go via Matamata but ended up in Paeroa, was hungry at this stage so stopped off for bacon and eggs. (you have to start the day off properly you know) Having fuelled myself up I pressed on only to be totally frustratedwith the amount and length of double yellow lines all the way into Tauranga. The worst of it being that you can see where the passing lines have been painted over, perhaps cages can't pass there but what thought was given towards motorcyclists.
Riding into Tauranga I see that the clouds are starting to look a little ominous (damn bloody f*&^%$t) just remembered I forgot to pack my drysuit, still hanging in the corner of the garage.
Now I had had a look at the long term forcast so was expecting some percipitation come Thursday.
Why oh why do you always have to forget something or other
So resigned to the fact of forgetfulness and not wanting to get wet leathers I head into town to look for a dealer and come across a Yamaha place, $110 dollars later I'm busy packing the suit into my pack when my phone rings, workfinish the call and blast off to refuel the cycle.
On the way I think what the fuck just hit me on my back, anyway stop to refuel and then notice that the phone call had distracted me enough to not zip my pack closed. ( fucking lost 2 packets of Winfield 25's)
Maybe I should just go home I says to meself
Nah it can only improve from here on in!
From Tauranga I head off to Whakatane alls good now although slightly boring lots of long straights with a few 65km/h corners and one or two 45ers.
Just before Port Ohope I get stopped for traffic control at roadworks, well I almost jumped the queue due to being almost surrounded by bees
Little fuckers everytime they sting me the swelling gets worse than the time before!
From there it's on and into Waioeka gorge I couldn't have believed that post I saw on the roadworks taking place there, well take it from me theres shit loads of it and it ain't demarcated too well either! Then just before Gisborne whilst overtaking a cage I get the radar detector alert me of "Bacon" the "bacon" tried to ping me at least four times and even tried to lure me into speeding in a 70k zoneHe eventually gave up and took a different route into town.
I was totally knackered from the ride and slept very well that night
Had me a big hearty breakfast of bacon,eggs,toast and baked beans on Wednesday morning, then on repacking the kitchen sink onto the packrack I noticed that my number plate,rego,warrant and indicators were about to fall off. I stopped at a panelbeaters but he was to busy to help until after lunchtime but he did have cable ties to offer me so the indicator stems were tied to my pack rack which assisted in getting my numberplate parallel to the road surface!
From there I headed inland to Tiniroto and then down to Wairoa what a good ride that turned out to be only complaint I have is with all the suicidal bugs that had to explode themselves on my visor (Muslim bugs?)
Wairoa into Napier was a little boring as I was running low on gas and had to take it real easy on the throttle, think I rode in on fumes!
Decided to spend the night in Napier and see how i felt in the morning, turns out I was actually very bright tailed and bushy eyed, I hit the road at 07:30 with wellington on my mind but then saw the weather rolling in and thought well maybe I can do Fielding, Bulls,Marton and then Wanganui anyway i got myself all confused and ended up on the Hastings to Taihape road well if you know the one I'm on about it turns into metal for longer than I could care for especially when the rain hit
The bits before and after the gravel were well worth it even in the rain and wind and boy oh boy did the wind blow! Got into Waiouru and then after a well deserved smoke I decided enoughs enough and my own bed back home will go down just nicely.
Made short work of the ride into Ohakune and pushed on into National park and from there i legged it into Taumarunui although by now the roads were flooding and had to slow down to a blur! filled up with gas and proceeded to head to Te Kuiti but alas to noavail as the road was closed due to a slip, that was around 10k's out so thought I'm not sitting out in this weather and headed back into Taumarunui where I caught up on a strong black coffee and a smoke, half an hour later I hit the road again and had to negotiate my way across at least three mud slides, the rest of the trip was pretty much uneventfull and got back to Auckland around 16:15 where I stopped off for a double Brandy at my local before heading home, I wonder what next week will bring?
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Originally Posted by marty
Never mind, save it for the pillion one day!
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