So while the rest of you pansy-girls were doing little poofy 200-300km day rides, I had the misfortune to suggest to GiJoe1313 that we might go to Cape Reinga.
Tagged along with Toto's Northland loop ride from Auckland -- what a wonderful ride that was, the road heading up to Tane Mahuta is my new favourite road anywhere, 25kms of banked 25-35kph rated corners. Those on the Northland Loop ride can attest to my stupid grin when I got to the top of the hill and pulled my helmet off.
At Kaikohe, GiJoe, Gremlin and I peeled off to pick up Angelkwan in Kerikeri. I think we got there around 5pm, 5.30pm or so. The roads out of Kerikeri going north to Awanui were pretty bland; long sweepers and lots of straights going up hills (much to Gremlin's discomfort, being stuck behind me revving the tits off in 4th gear trying to hold 90kph). We nipped past Awanui, planning to fuel up in Houhoura (I think) -- sign said `5km fuel' and we weren't to disbelieve it. Unfortunately, we got there, and the Mobil was shut. Arse. Gremlin's 990SM goes like stink but seems to be pushing it at 200kph a tank. So, 30km back down the road to Awanui to fuel up.
Onwards to Cape Reinga was great. Beautiful roads sweeping across the top of hills, gorgeous views. I was getting impatient though, kept thinking I could see the beginning of the gravel across a valley a kilometre down the road, and getting disappointed when it turned out to be tarmac
Eventually hit the gravel. GiJoe, with a pillion and fat Hornet 900 tyres, wasn't exactly flying through the gravel, so I nipped past him. Gravel was smooth and hard-packed as anything, I don't know what everybody whinges about.
About 5km from the Cape, the road climbed up through a cutting in the hillside, and I saw a car parked off to the side of the road. Scratched-up looking Ninja 250R, and a poor young guy having a wee lie down. Stopped and got off and the lady with the car told me she'd come across him arsed off -- broken ankle -- any painkillers? I had nothing, neither did the other two when they got there, poor bastard was feeling pretty rubbish. Ankle didn't look great. Brand new bike, his first -- I saw on the odometer he'd only done 700kms so far. Maybe a little bit ambitious, he'd ridden from Auckland with his mate. Not wearing boots, only sports shoes, and when his front wheel washed out, the tailpiece landed on his ankle and broke it.
His mate had taken off to get the ranger up towards the cape, who turned out to be a hilarious weatherbeaten Maori bloke with a ponytail. An ambulance was summoned, made him as comfortable as possible. I hid the bike down the road behind some of the big heavy roading machinery once I took the gearlever off and inverted it the right way around.
The sun was ready to go down, so Gremlin stayed with the others at the accident scene and GiJoe, Angel and I took off to the Cape. Took our bikes down to the lighthouse. What an amazing place. Feels like such a huge volume of air and water, can't quite describe it.
Hung around there for a little bit, took lots of photos, then went back to where they were waiting for the ambulance, so Gremlin could head up to the Cape. Just as he was coming back, the ambulance arrived. Splinted his leg up and gave him a bag of juice to suck on. At this point the ambulance people sent the ranger off to look for a place for the chopper to land -- yes, a helicopter airlift for a broken ankleI suppose it would need an operation, and the nearest place would be Whangarei, but it still surprised us. The helicopter landed on top of the cutting, right above us. Very impressive. Like something out of a war film. Tried taking some photos but you can't see shit of course, by now it was pitch black. We had to take the stretcher up on top of the cutting and then over a fence, which wasn't that straightforward. Once he was off the towie turned up for his bike, so we had to go and find it in the dark and load it onto that, which was less than straightforward.
Eventually we started to head back. Made Kaitaia for fuel right on midnight. GiJoe got us semi-lost on the way to Kerikeri to drop Angel off; Gremlin's GPS saved us. I thought we were going to stay the night in Kerikeri as Angel had suggested, but GiJoe said `let's go back to Auckland tonight' and I'm not one to refuse him his fun
Riding back was sort of eerie and weird, being so tired, the headlights in the trees and hills, absence of sound from wearing earplugs. Very unusual experience. We came down SH1, which was not anywhere near as interesting as coming up the other side was, but probably for the best seeing I was pretty shagged out. Made Whangarei at 3am.
Coming back from Whangarei, started to get more comfortable, a second wind of sorts. Perhaps the Peanut Slab did its magic. As we hit Orewa, the sky was starting to get light, Gremlin stopped us to remind us that because of GiJoe1313, we'd just been riding the whole night. Going over the Harbour Bridge, the sun was just starting to come up. Magic.
Home at 5.45am, asleep by 6am.
I make it 1161kms in 22 hours or so. Need a bit more practice before I try the Grand Challenge next year -- then again, hopefully won't have to wait around for hours for ambulances and helicopters. Might have to do Wellington next time?
Thanks everybody, I had a blast
tl;dr Rode for fookin' ages and got knackered.
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Originally Posted by CB ARGH
Don't just live to ride but ride to live.
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