This my final entry for my journey so it will be a sum up of 3 weeks of travel.
I arrived in Sydney and travelled to Wollongong for the World Triathlon Championships, representing Canada in the 75-79 Age Group. I placed 21/21 in 2:12 hours.
I then flew to Auckland, New Zealand where I rented a Honda 500 CMX Rebel, the perfect bike for windy, tertiary roads.
New Zealand is a wonderful country. There are only 5 million people here, of which half are of white origin. The scenery is absolutely outstanding. The people are very friendly and helpful. You are safe anywhere you go. You get good value for your money. It is not more expensive than Canada for what you get in hotels and in restaurants. The country has everything that you could want, the sea for surfing and sailing, mountains for skiing, wine, a friendly laid back population, good service, and a stable government.
If I did not have a wife, 4 children, 6 grandchildren and was looking for a place to retire, NZ would be high on my list.
When I awoke this morning, they were calling for light rain. I reviewed my route with my GPS lady and opted for secondary roads instead of tertiary roads. That would save me 1 hour and 40kms. I would rather be on secondary roads if it were to rain again like it did 2 days ago. In the end it did not rain at all. I was treated to a wonderful ride in the country, 18C, blue skies with a few cumulus clouds and a good road. I am staying in a large house in the country just outside of Hamilton. The B & B is situated on several acres of land. There are horses, ponies, sheep and alpaca in the fields.
I decided last evening after a long, cold, rainy, windy day, I would go to bed early and wake up late (and refreshed). It was still raining this morning, so I took the time to catch up on emails. Eventually, when the weather cleared in the early afternoon, I explored New Plymouth. The downtown area is small and rather cute. The town is situated on the ocean. There is a 12 km path that goes along the seashore. The waves were crashing on to the shore all day.
I left Penny and Andrew this morning and before heading off to New Plymouth, I stopped by Clyde’s Place. Penny had arranged a tour of his incredible garden and motorbike collection. Clyde was once a ‘farmer’ with thousands of sheep and cattle on his 1500 acre ‘ranch.’ He has since sold off the sheep and cattle and concentrates on his garden and motorcycle collection.
First I visited his ‘garage’ where he has about 50 motorcycles all in beautiful condition and in running order. Some of the bikes date back to the 1930s. Others are from the 60s and 70s with a few more modern bikes. He has collected them for all over the world. There are Triumphs, BSAs, Jawas, Nortons, Ariels, Ducatis, BMWs, Moto Guzzis and many others that I am not familiar with.
Motorcycles:
Clyde’s motorbike collection
Clyde’s Garden Paradise
The rest of the day was one of the worst motorcycle days that I have ever experienced; pouring rain, sheets of rain, strong winds, but the road was not slippery. I arrived at my hotel in New Plymouth soaking wet. The water had seeped down my neck making my polo shirt and fleece quite wet. The nice lady at the hotel desk offered to dry my clothes for me. I will drown my sorrows in wine accompanied by a good meal.
I arrived in Whanganui 2 days ago and am staying at a wonderful bed and breakfast run by Andrew and Penny. The house is situated on 3.5 acres of land in rolling countryside. Penny is an expert horticulturist and has planted hundreds of plants in the garden. There are paths going through the secluded garden spaces where you are absolutely alone with nature. The garden has many sculptures of Japanese origin. There is a pond with ducks and many different birds. Most of what she grows here would have to be grown in a green house in Canada. The climate here is much more temperate than what we have in Quebec.
Yesterday, I drove around the area and visited the town of Whanganui. I visited the Māori Museum and a local art gallery. I then climbed up a memorial watch tower, 156 steps to view the countryside. Afterwards I rode down to the beach. It was blowing 40 knots with big waves. There were no sailboats out, no surfers and no swimmers. I walked out onto a stone peer and was almost blown away with the gusts. The sand is very fine and black in colour from the iron in the stones here.
Get your motor runnin’ , Head out on the highway, Looking for adventure, I whatever comes our way, Born to be wild,
I left Barb and Mike in Kuratau this morning and headed off to Whanganui today. The weather started off cloudy but warmed up as the day want on. At first I drove on a 2 lane secondary road and could do 85-90km/hr. My GPS lady said that I could do the last 97 km in 2.5 hours. This did not seem right if I could continue at the same speed. At that point just when I was doing the math, I turned off onto a small side road. I remained in 2nd and 3rd gear for the rest of the trip doing 30-40 km/hr with hairpin turns doing 25. The GPS lady was wrong. It took me 4 hours with stops to take pictures and have a coffee.
I met up with 2 fellows with 1600 cc Harleys at a lookout. I wear my Northface goretex ski outfit with a fleece and a t-shirt. I have a closed helmet, leather motorcycle boots and goretex pants. They were wearing open saddles, shorts, t-shirts with no sleeves and open face helmets. Clearly we were travelling in different climates.
I arrived last evening in Kuratau as small village on Lake Taupo, a large fresh water lake about 50km long and very deep. I am staying at Tongariro Adventures on the shore of the lake. My hosts Barb and Mike are lovely people. They listen well to my endless stories. I ate dinner at a high quality restaurant overlooking the lake. I had to take my motorbike to get there which curtailed my consumption of wine.
This morning I awoke to blue skies, cool temperatures which warmed up during the day. Mike advised me to ride up to Whakapapa Village ( that really is its name) and then up to the ski resort on Mt. Ruapehu. It was a wonderful ride up windy roads to the base of the mountain. The scenery begins with rolling hills and sheep and eventually breath taking views of the mountain. The mountain is covered in snow half way up, but the season was ending and I didn’t see any skiers.
Half way up the mountain, I became aware of the idiot blinking light (for idiots) warning me that I was almost out of gas. I continued up the mountain anyway as I figuered that I could always just roll back the mountain in neutral. I have been riding motorcycles for over 50 years so it is amazing that I didn’t check the reservoir before starting out. At the base of the mountain I struck up a conversation with Ben, one of the mountain employees. It is really easy to meet people when you are alone on a bike. Everyone wants to know where you are from, how long you have been in New Zealand and what are your plans for riding. I told Ben that I was out of gas. The next gas station was 10km away, a bit risky on an almost empty tank. ‘No worries.’ While I sipped a cappuccino at the cafe, he called over his friend Grace who drummed up a canister of gas for me. She was a world traveller and had worked in a ski resort in Prince George, Northern B.C.
We filled up my tank and I was on my way back to my hotel. A group of motorcycles passed me at breakneck speed. I can’t and don’t ever want to go that fast.
Love,
Brian
Photos taken on the road from Kuratau to Whakapapa
I was hoping in vain for the same beautiful weather today as yesterday, but that was too much to expect. On South Island and even at Wellington which is at the southern point of the North Island, the weather has been awful. All flights were cancelled. It is pouring rain with 120 km/hr winds. They were telling everyone to stay off the roads and to stay in doors. Today, I think that we got a piece of the action.
I rode from Tauranga to Kuratau in 4.5 hours. It started off cloudy but soon progressed to fog for 1 hour. Then, I experienced heavy rain and moderate winds for the next 3 hours. I don’t like to ride in the rain as the roads can be slippery but it was actually ok, The roads surface is somewhat rough which makes it less slippery. The countryside is very pretty with rolling hills and much pasture land.
I am staying in Kuratau in a small, comfortable and well appointed cabin. I have a small kitchenette and could cook if I wanted too. It is not raining here and I am drying out my clothes. I will have dinner early in the village as I didn’t eat all day.
Love,
Brian
The pictures were taken along the route from Tauranga to Kuratau.
It’a amazing, that when you are travelling, you can have good days, better days and fabulous days with only the occasion blip. Today, after breakfast, I elected to do a walking day to give my 9 hour, motorcycle bum a rest. I walked down from my hotel to the waterfront, passing through the town. Tauranga is a lovely town, doubling as a beach resort and a large industrial port. The downtown area has the usual amount of shops with a number of them specializing in hiking and sporting equipment. I did a lot of browsing but no purchasing, responding to the sales people that I was only a tourist vacationing.
I found myself at the waterfront overlooking an old railway bridge which took me across the bay. The bridge had a walking lane used by hikers, runners and bicyclists. It was 800 meters long. I walked across and found myself on a road that followed the beach on the other side. I walked for an hour and eventually a car stopped to ask me if I was lost and could she give me a lift. Her mother was in the back seat and was probably about my age. I told her that I was from Canada and that I had just completed a triathlon as she had notice the number tatoued on my arm. She drove me a few kms to the local bus station. She explained to me that she was of Mauri origin. The Mauris are the original settlers here, arriving from Polynesia several hundred years before the white man. Mauri culture is very evident here as many of the villages and mountains are in Mauri language and are unpronounceable and difficult for me to memorize. There are only 5 million people in all of NZ, many of whom are Mauri. On the bus, the stations are announced in Mauri and English. We could take a lesson from them in Quebec. Our native Indian culture is visibly lost in our everyday lives.
The bus took me to Mount Maunganui and the bus driver asked me politely if I was going to hike up the mountain. When I acknowledged that was what I was here to do, he responded ‘that is what I figured.’ I took that as a compliment as I guess that he also had seen my tatous. I had a cappuccino and muffin for lunch and spoke with a young couple from Italy, travelling around and working as cooks. I suggested to the young lady, Noel that they might find work in Whistler as they were quite interested in the fact that I was from Canada.
I asked the waitress about how long it would take me to climb the 300m mountain. She looked at me and suggested that I try the climb tomorrow as I had just consumed 1 muffin and 2 cappuchinos. I started up the mountain and asked a few young people if I could climb up the mountain in 1 hour or so. They politely smiled. There were several paths to take, longer with a gentle slope or shorter but steeper. I took the latter to go up and the former to walk down. On my way back I spoke to a young fellow who lived here and then with an Estonian waiter who is a sea captain. You meet so many people when you travel alone.
All of the pictures below were taken in Tauranga and on Mount Maunganui.
’Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.’ I repacked my already stuffed to the brim, suitcases. again. i had to find a place for my new medal and had to really push to close the bag. I called an Uber to take me to my motorcycle rental place across the bridge in a suburb of Auckland. I am getting rather good at ubering and can summon up one all by myself. I arrived at the motorcycle shop and met the man in charge. He explained the workings of the bike to me and gave me some advice of windy roads to take for my next leg of my journey. I rented a Honda 500 Rebel CMX which is rather small and easy to manoeuvre on the hilly narrow roads that I will travel on. The bike came with 2 saddle bags and an over the wheel trunk. I repacked taking only what I would need for the trip. All bikes are geared the same, one down and 4 up. For one second I forgot and started the bike, ready to go in 1 up, second gear. The fellow looked at me and I could see by his face that he was wondering if this was my first time on a bike and should he be really renting it to me.
When ever I get on my bike, I always say to myself, ‘this could be my last ride.’ So far I have been wrong. The bike although small, was not really small. Riding a new bike with the gears on the opposite side as my triumph is always a challenge. They drive on the left side of the road here. My TomTom motorcycle GPS allows me to choose primary, secondary or tertiary roads, hilly, very hilly and very hilly roads, curvy, very curvy and very very curvy roads II had chosen to ride on the latter of all three choices. I started up the engine and wondered to myself if I had not bitten more than I can chew, as usual. 1 hour into the ride, I had gained back my usual over confidence and knew that I could easily master the low cut Honda.
The drive out of Auckland was rather boring as I had to go back over the bridge and through the entire city. The city has small towns, attached to each other and go on for 1 hour, not very interesting. Finally, I arrived in the country side. I drove on for several hours through rolling hills and small farms. I arrived at the turning point where I had to decide whether or not to continue on to Tauranga or head north up the peninsula and follow the ‘spectacular road’ that the motor-shop man had described to me. I chose the latter and headed up the peninsula. This was supposed to add 3 hours to my journey. It added another 5 hours but it was really worth while.
The road was narrow, windy, hilly, and curvy to the extreme, perfect for my first day on a new motorcycle in a new country. A real baptism by fire. The road wound along the sea with the mountains often coming right down to the water, The road was often cut out of the mountain. Finally, I arrived at the top of the peninsula and road across to the other side. Here the road cut through the mountain with hair pin turns and switch backs. I road in 2nd or 3rd gear for the most part doing 30-50 k/hr. Many turns were marked 25 k/hr and it was impossible to go faster. Later on the roads were marked at 100 k/hr. I never dared to go over 80.
I arrived in Tauranga, 10 hours later, having stopped only once for lunch and many times to take photos. I usually don’t like to ride a bike after dark or in the rain. I finished my journey in the dark and with a light drizzle. My GPS lady got lost and I drove around Tauranga for 1 hour before finding my hotel. I was ready for a beer.
Love,
Brian
All the photos below were taken on my motor cycle journey, from Auckland up the peninsula and then back down to Tauranga.
gobriantravel 