n Z - north island

The weather was superb so we planned our 400+km return trip to the Cape Reinga Lighthouse. It was a brilliant ride with good roads & scenery of 90 mile beach and its famous sand dunes, very light traffic and excellent weathernothing could spoil that?

standing on this clear day.

Next stop was Rotorua as we awaited news on the reopening of the roads further north. Rotorua is famous for its Maori culture and sulphur fumes. It has earned a less desirable reputation in more recent times wherein a lot of Motel rooms have been booked out by the Government for use as emergency housing. The evidence of this is clear as you move around town so need to be careful to make sure your steed is safe if staying overnight.

Or could it? It was late afternoon and we were cruising home with about 50km left in the day’s journey. We stopped at a major bridge construction site on the Kaeo River and turned off the engine while waiting 5+ minutes for a green light. Fired up the bike when we got a Green and had only moved a few metres when our world went black - yes the bike was as dead as a Dodo. Off on a safe piece of ground I removed the seat to find the battery had dead shorted through the rider seat support bar. This had generated a lot of heat even melting the nylon straps of the tank bag. The battery was toast. How the bar came into contact with the battery terminals remains a mystery.

We heard from friends Grahame & Gloria on their Triumph that they had been able to get through to the Bay of Islands with detours so northward bound we went. Pictures we saw of what remained of State Hwy 1 in the Brynderwyn Hills were quite frightening - the land slips had just swallowed the road so a long cleanup and rebuild lay ahead. We managed to get through OK and enjoyed our first visit to the Bay of Islands.

When travelling solo as Jane & I prefer to do we need to have some strategy to deal with such eventualities. I was running the options through my brain when Brent pulled up in his coast to Whangarei.

We caught up with Ian at his beautiful bayside home at One Tree Point, south of Whangarei, but declined the kind offer to stay the night.

We wanted to avoid the notoriously bad Auckland traffic the next morning but with hindsight we should have stayed. A word here about accommodation on the North Island. We had pret-

4x4 and offered his help by way of jumper cables. The battery was dead so this was not an option. Brent lived in the small village of Kaeo not far away and offered a spare battery he had recently removed from his Kawasaki cruiser. He took off home and promptly returned with the much smaller battery but it did the trick and the Gray Ghost was mobile again. Brent refused any payment for the battery or his assistance, just happy to help a fellow biker in need. What a top bloke. The small Kawasaki battery was not going to meet the ongoing demands of the GS so I contacted Chris, my counterpart in the BMWMC of NZ and he put me in touch with Ian, their area rep in Northland. Ian directed me to an auto electrician in Whangarei about 70km south where I picked up a new battery the next morning. The only disappointment was that we couldn’t risk turning the bike on & off with the smaller battery so made a B line for Whangarei. We thus missed our planned Ferry Crossing to Russell, the first capital of NZ, then around the ty much pre-booked the South Island accommodation as February is their peak tourist month. We were ‘winging it’ on the North Island as the school holidays had finished and the North does not get the tourist numbers that swarm over the South Island. Unfortunately there were several compounding factors that reduced the stock of tourist accommodation. The take up of spaces for emergency housing as experienced in Rotorua, the shortage of hospitality staff that forced some places to close or have limited access, the cyclone that forced a lot of people out of their homes or they were unable to return due to access road closures and finally the ferry services that were in complete disarray stranding people anywhere within a days travel of the ferry ports.

We passed to the west of Auckland and pulled into the reasonably sized town of Tuakau. In the sparse carpark of the Hotel/Motel we were contemplating what beer would be best with dinner. Notice on the Motel said staff had gone home so into the pub. No we can’t help you. Surely there is a phone number - No. Any other places in town you can recommend? - No. Thus begun a seemingly futile phone search for a bed for the night, Jane reading out phone numbers and me calling with the same response, NO. The light had disappeared from the day, I had reinstalled my clear visor and we were contemplating a night in a bus shelter - then a glimmer of hope! Yes, we have one room left but it’s a twin, we’ll take it. Muffled female voice from the background, no the wife says it hasn’t been made up. I don’t care we will still take it, we are Australian so no worries. How far away are you - oh about half an hour I said with absolutely no idea where this Motel was. OK we will stay open and I will tidy up the room for you. OK Jane where was this placeNgaruawahia and 47 minutes away according to Dr Google. Now I do not want to tell any porkies or get myself in trouble with the NZ constabulary but the Grey Ghost pulled into the River Bed Motel with engine sizzling just under 40 minutes later. Our unshaven new best friend welcomed us making some light comment about thinking we were coming from Australia, handed us the key and turned out the lights as he was a shift worker and was due back to the grind at 6am.The less pressing matter of dinner then raised its head, it was ticking towards 9pm so we dropped our gear and hit the supermarket as the doors were being closed. Hardly a cordon bleu meal but kept the worms at bay and we chalked up another mark on the experience belt - always better in the retelling than experiencing.

We had bought forward our return ferry to the South Island as there was so much of the beautiful east coast that we had to avoid because of the cyclone and we were getting more than a little worried by the horror news on the Inter Island Ferry services. We had re-booked from 28 Feb to Saturday 25 Feb with Interislander. Of their three ferries one had broken down and was out of service, a second one had broken down at sea and left 800 passengers floating in the strait for 11 hours so it had been reduced to freight only until they were satisfied it was reliable. Bluebridge had, for reasons known only to them, sent one of their ferries to Sydney for dry-dock routine maintenance, during peak tourist season! Their second ferry then broke down leaving them also with one operational ferry. To further compound the problems the cyclone had forced the cancellation of services for a day with the huge seas and a lot of their operational staff were impacted by the cy- clone and couldn’t or wouldn’t return to work. All of that lay ahead of us!

Ian from the BMW Club had pointed us in the direction of some great riding roads and a very special Farm Stay outside of Mangaweka which was a trip highlight and certainly compensated for the problems encountered earlier. The Manawatu Scenic Route along the valley of the Mangawharariki River to the farmstay and then the road out to the east on the Rangiwahia Road was spectacular and somewhere only the locals know & use. We did have to dodge a lot of landslip debris along the valley but that was a small price to pay.

We made our way back south where we caught up with Chris the President of the BMWMC of NZ who was also a wonderful host and very welcoming. We had been invited to stay with

Jane & Grant our Moto Guzzi riding friends who we met on the South Island. Their place at Upper Hutt was an ideal location to get to our ferry in Wellington. I reasoned that we could ride as far away from Picton as necessary to avoid the accommodation calamity caused by the ferry disruptions. All was going well until we received an SMS message that our ferry was now due to leave at 5pm. Assuming it left on time we would be getting offloaded sometime between 8.30 & 9pm. OK hit the phones and internet for somewhere to stay. The reports we had read had not been exaggerated - there was absolutely nothing to be had within a few hours of Picton. It looked like we were going to stay in the ferry offices; then a dim light bulb went off in my brain while studying the map. There was a truckers stop south of Blenheim and about 35km from the Ferry Terminal, and they sometimes have accommodation for truck drivers.

Maree politely answered my phone query with a YES, she had something available for that night - a shipping container! I immediately accepted and gave her a metaphorical hug down the phone line. A little further into the

As it transpired the ferry left over an hour late, we arrived very late into Picton and of course it was raining. We did find our container and were really not surprised to find four other motorbikes with their riders staying in the oth- conversation I mentioned that my wife will be most pleased to not be sleeping under the stars - oh there are two of you, this is only a single! Doesn’t matter, after 44 years of married life I think we can handle that. OK I will turn a blind eye. Thanks Maree. Maree then proceeded to give me directions as to how to find our shipping container as we would not be arriving before they closed for the night. This involved 2 roundabouts, a yard full of Kenworths, a key under a mat, access through 2 kitchens, left at the caravans via a truck office et el. Ah what if I get lost - oh OK here is my personal mobile number if you have any trouble - what a treasure. I have been in multi star hotels in my past work life where the staff could take lessons from Maree. er containers. The shipping container was self contained and really very comfortable. Next morning, as directed, we headed to the truckers cafe where we met the tattooed Maree who was cooking up breakfasts. A delightful lady and very generous with the bacon. The transition back to the South Island was like a veil had been lifted as we were now assured of getting the Grey Ghost back to Christchurch. The weather returned to perfect and all was good with the world. We explored the Marlborough wine country and the beautiful Lake Rotoiti and crossed back to the west coast with the few extra days we now had available.

We explored the coast up to Karamea north of Westport which was all new to us but excellent riding save for the loose gravel on the multiple sections of road repair. The former coal mining town of Denniston on the hills behind the coast is now a popular tourist destination. There is much to see with information boards and restored mining artifacts providing a very interesting sidelight from the main coast road. The twisting road alone makes this a worthwhile diversion for the adventurous motorcyclist. We crossed the Southern Alps again, this time via the brilliant roads of Arthur’s Pass. The east coast road is a brilliant ride and we managed to catch up with our Triumph riding friends Grahame & Gloria at Kaikoura for our last days together riding back to Christchurch comparing notes on what had been a fabulous six weeks. Our distances were similar above 9,000kms and both bikes had performed faultlessly apart from our battery problem. A thorough clean, dinner with Dave Milligan of Get Routed before we bade farewell to the bikes and flew home via Wellington. Our NZ cousins are a friendly bunch and their roads and scenery are spectacular. Think of Tasmania on steroids. We will get back there again as its really not too far away.