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Day 1 - Auckland to Papamoa

Published by miken on December 22, 2007 in Roadtrip 07-08. 0 Comments

Well day one has been a blast. I was awake this morning from about 4am with my mind racing through everything I needed to take again and again. Sleep was something elusive so it was a welcome sight to see the dawn break. I decided not to check the forecast today because it didn’t matter; we were leaving no matter what, so what a great surprise to have pretty perfect riding conditions all day.

We headed south down old faithful, SH1, and turned off towards Tauranga after the Bombays. It was a fantastic ride through countryside I have only ever seen through the car window in the past, noticing so much more.

We passed through several small towns where you wonder what every that lives there does. Towns like Maramarua, Turua and others of the same ilk. We put our feet up at a rest stop about 1 hour out of Auckland and met a nice deaf man, who has embraced modern technology and used his mobile phone to communicate with us. Myra has had trouble with her ear plugs since we bought them for her and needed to reassess the situation inside her helmet, so once that was done it was back on the road.

Next stop was Paeroa, for the obligatory L&P bottle shot, with a twist. The coast was clear so we couldn’t resist a park up for a candid picture. From there we shot through to Papamoa with only one small town dairy visit for a thirst quencher. I think Tauranga must have had a whole lot of road works recently because there were numerous times when Karen, our Aussie tour guide that lives in the GPS, became completely disorientated. It was a fun exercise trying to navigate through non existent roundabouts and turns that were not there!

Eventually we made it to Papamoa unscathed, only to realise we could not remember the place we were staying, so it was to the car park of the local dairy to unpack the rear pannier so we could find the details. Once we did sort it out, we saw we were only 450m away.

It was excellent to get out of our riding gear and into some shorts. The place we are staying is the Papamoa Village Holiday Park, and it looks like a small town preparing for war. The influx of youth and alcohol to these types of establishments really is something they are battening down the hatches for. One of the locals we met in particular was in no mood for out of towners, and did not mind letting that be known! The people that reside here through the year must dread New Years.

We visited an awesome little authentic Italian restaurant in Tauranga for tea called Bel Mia Pizza. Giuseppe cooks a mean pizza, and the family establishment is an awesome place to dine, even if they did seem a bit rushed of their feet tonight.

So that was day one, a good start, I’m looking forward to the long haul to Te Puia Springs tomorrow. The roads look nice and I’ve never been in that part of New Zealand, so it should be a great day.

Here we go, T-24

Published by miken on December 21, 2007 in Roadtrip 07-08. 0 Comments

Well it’s nearly apon us.

After nearly a year of discussing, convincing, saving (well probably more spending than saving!), reading, packing practice and trying to think of everything, we’re less than 24 hours out from departure.

The day seems long ago that I came to this epiphany while looking through a motorcycle magazine, and to actually have gotten to this point without wavering has been an achievement in itself.

To all our friends and family we will not see this Christmas, we love you and wish you the very best, we’ll be thinking of you. It will be very unusual to not see your smiling faces this year, and this will be the largest price we pay for this trip.

To the family we will see, it’s been so long I hope we are not strangers.

To all the morons, idiots, unobservants and ignorants on the road out there, please look for it in yourself to take it easy and lets hope our journeys do not intersect.

To everyone who is just here to see what we see and read what we write, I hope I can do this country’s beauty justice with my limited writing and photography skills, and hold your attention through the next three weeks. I would like to say thank you for taking the time to come here in the first place, even before we begin.

I hope everyone enjoys the winding down of 2007 and the dawn of 2008. We shall tread carefully around the shores of Aotearoa and return next year, a little more educated about the place we live and love I am sure.

Think of us when you raise a toast this year, for we shall be on The Great New Zealand Motorcycle Adventure, but will not forget to do the same for you.

Mike & Myra.

Planned Route, clockwise from Auckland to Auckland.

Coromandel overrun by rats!

Published by miken on December 3, 2007 in Miscellaneous. 0 Comments

With Sunday’s forecast for fair weather, and the RAT club meeting for the final ride of 2007, the planets were aligned and destiny saw us get up remarkably early for a Sunday, don our gear, and head down to the Portside Brasserie for a 9am scheduled start.

Not having ever ridden in a group of more than 3 or 4, and having no idea what type of demographic the typical Triumph rider populates, I had absolute no idea what was in store for us as we turned into Halsey St. Turns out it’s a pretty ecletic bunch, with a lot of nice machinery to boot and plenty of smiles all round.

Rob, a most affable Irish lad and the ride leader, greeted us very warmly and introduced himself with a heartfelt hello. He explained to us the plan was to ride out to Kopu, then turn left and do the lap of the Coromandel clockwise. I wasn’t quite sure how long the ride would be, so the total distance of over 500kms would be an excellent test of endurance for our coming trip.

Everyone set out with a pretty easy pace just after 9, heading down the southern motorway in a pretty impressive convoy of what must have been maybe 15-20 beautiful bikes. The sun was beating down and a good day was imminent!

I’ve been to the Coromandel quite a few times for camping, but have never been the way we went. We took the turn off at Manurewa I think and went through Clevedon. I have to admit I was so adamant that I would not get lost that I was concentrating so hard on just following the person in front I didn’t really look which way we went. Pretty contradictory really but there you go!

The route we took was stunning, both visually and for the riding. Once we cleared civilisation, the pack, which had already fragmented into a few groups, seemed to just turn on the warp factor. We kept pace with a group of three riders for maybe half an hour, but lost them completely when we stopped at what I thought was a few of our group on the side of the road. Turns out they weren’t with us, but by the time I rejoined the tarmac, we were on our own! It was great fun for while we were in touch, but with a pillion and my lack of experience over the last 10 years, we were never going to stick with them.

Everyone regrouped at Kopu, where a couple of the Tiger riders went south to do some gravel roads, and the rest of us headed north to Coromandel township for lunch. This time, we glued ourselves to the back of a different rider, and kept a very nice pace with him for half the trip. However he left us for dust eventually as well, maybe he got sick of us who knows but he just turned on the turbos suddenly and pretty much disappeared!

Lunch in the Coro was a nice affair at a small deli called Umo I think Unfortunately by that time rain had settled in, leaving the roads pretty slippery. It did not look like it would disappear either, so with the prospect of being tail end charlie for the rest of the trip, and the added bonus of doing it in the rain, we decided to turn back. A few others agreed, and I think maybe a third to a half of the group ended up going back. There were plenty of riders that scoffed at the weather and carried on though, we weren’t all soft!

It had been a long time in the saddle for us by then, so Myra requested an extra stop at a bay in the Firth of Thames. I then got some great photos of her having a quick nap in the field With her Powernap over, we cruised back to Auckland in a mixture of weather, both fine and wet, with not much else to write about. Standard SH1 drudgery.

All in all I had a great time. Disappointing as it is to say, I do have to admit we think we are the slowest RAT members in Auckland! Not that this bothered us too much, and we’re looking forward to getting to know some of those guys a bit better and attending some more journeys! So a big thumbs up to the RATs.

Only three weeks till we depart, we’re both pretty keen to get going and looking forward to the break.

First weekend of summer.

Published by miken on November 15, 2007 in Miscellaneous. 0 Comments

Last Sunday finally saw the cold spell fall and break it’s back.

We’ve been suffering for a while as the weather kept the shorts and t-shirts we’d washed in anticipation remain packed in their winter tombs. Saturday dawned to a magnificent sky and the lawns and I, who had not been on speaking terms for months, were finally reacquainted via our mutual friend the Masport mower.

It felt so good to get outside and feel the centre of the universe beating down upon my back after what has seemed like months and months of indifferent token showings. Getting a sweat up whilst mowing my pathetic city lawn is something that does bring a smile to my face.

With the weather gods smiling, and after long avoiding this site, we finally pulled the bike out of the garage and rode out the long way to Bastion Point to take some photos of black beauty. I’ve managed to dedicate some time to the roadtrip site as well, and have got some really nifty software addons working now, including a pretty good image gallery.

I’ve uploaded the gallery here:

We’re right in the midst of planning for our trip, with the commencement date of December 22 fast approaching. We’ve had a slightly major setback from Myra’s work, in that they have declined her application for 4 weeks leave, so we are trying to work out how we can get right around the south island in two weeks, when we originally and planned for 3 (the fourth week was to get down to the bottom and back to the top of the North island). I am sure we will work out a way but it is a disappointment to cut the trip short. In saying that, we’ll probably be quite weary after 21 days in the saddle, so three weeks may just be the magic balance.

Broken and lazy

Published by miken on November 14, 2007 in Miscellaneous. 0 Comments

Well it turns out I am not a natural blogger! Heaps has happened since the last post, I received the bike, have broken it in, had many parts installed and had some great times. All of which would have made some pretty interesting reading.

I am going to have to make a conscious effort to keep it up to date otherwise there really is no point.

So please bare with me, I had a look at this site yesterday to try and update with all the latest info and broke it. I thought it’d be a great idea to update to the latest version of Wordpress without reading all the info.

So I’ve got the site back up, but just need to resurrect my theme

ETA - July

Published by miken on May 17, 2007 in Miscellaneous. 0 Comments

Well, there’s been no updates for a while because there’s been nothing to talk about. We’ve finished purchasing all of our gear but can’t really relate how good it is or isn’t as we have no bike to ride to test it.

I did borrow a VTR250 from AMPS for a weekend which was great, (which I found was an absolutely fantastic learners bike and if Myra ever decided to learn I’d feel very comfortable with her on one of those). In that time I found my ProRace helmet leaked but the boys at BMW have fixed that up since, and barring standing under the garden hose I just have to take their word for it.

Anyway, I’ve been pestering AMPS for some word about our bike every week for some time, and they’ve finally come back with something from the UK.

The ABS Sprint will be shipped as soon as we have enough units for a full container, this will happen before the end of May which puts delivery into July now. As soon as the factory provide a load sheet I will give you a more concrete ETA.

Well, it’s still a while away which is a damn shame but at least we have some sort of idea now.

With the beautiful Autumn we are having it’s been a very frustrating experience just idling away. To top it off my car has been in the shop now for over 2 months being repaired from wiring damage car thieves did to it when trying to take it, so I am essentially without a main source of transport!

Myra found this pic on the internet to sum up our situation which I thought was hilarious.

Only until July though, then we shall be riding in style!

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