New Zealand - Day 8

Te Anau to Balclutha - Feb 18

Day 8 of our trip had dawned and we were heading for Invercargill and the worlds fastest Indian. The ride out of Te Anau followed the southern scenic route and boy did it live up to its name. The southern scenic route went all the way from Te Anau through Invercargill and across to Balclutha our destination for tonight.

So it was easy we just had to follow this sign everywhere. It couldn't have been easier.

Geoff thought it was going to rain so we pulled over to put on our wet weather gear, which pretty much made it stay dry all day from that point on. Good work Roosty.

After the road had left the mountains we rode through many km's of farming land until it came out upon the coast. It was a little windy along here but not to bad and we stopped to have a look at one of the ocean views. It must get very windy along the coast here as there were quite a few trees that were growing on a sideways angle. We rolled into Riverton for another coffee and homemade pie. My pie was excellent on a cool morning. The scenery along here reminded me of the coastline along Phillip Island.

Te Waewae Bay

Davo having some fun

Riverton

After we left Riverton we headed into Invercargill which was only a short ride. We found the E Hayes hardware shop in the main street pretty easily and put some coins in the parking meters and wandered on in to have a look. I tell you it was one of the weirdest things I think I've seen. It's like your typical hardware store with tools, chainsaws, etc with classic cars and bike displays in between the rows of goods. They have a couple of rows of motorcycles on display with a mock up of the Indian that you can actually hop inside, if you can fit that is.

Below is a photo of me with the genuine article, the actual bike that Burt Munro rode. It's funny that this ancient bike is faster than my R1. I know which one I'd feel safer on at 285kmh and I wouldn't be in danger of burning my knackers on the exhaust pipes on the R1.

Not much room in there

In the photo above those are the exhaust pipes on either side of the seat, anyone for roasted nuts?

Old Triumphs

Old chevys

Wayne and Geoff decided to try out the mock up Indian that you could get in. They were very squashed trying to get in there so I didn't bother to have a go because I knew I wouldn't fit. The best part of all was that it was free to go and look at all of these cars, and motorcycles. How good is that?

After we left the museum the others had suggested that we ride down to bluff, the southern most point on the south island. I didn't care either way and hadn't planned on it but we had plenty of time to spare so why not. There wasn't much really in Bluff itself so we rode up to the big hill that overlooks the town and looked at the views and took some more photo's.

Me at Bluff

Beaches at Bluff

Bluff

Lands End

We rode down to the famous lands end landmark sign that was at the very bottom end of bluff. Next stop after here is Antarctica. Davo and I had to get the obligatory picture by the sign just so we could say we've been here. This is the southernmost point on the mainland that you can drive to.




There wasn't much at all in bluff really and it was an unattractive industrial town, not unlike Newcastle or Wollongong although there were some beautiful beaches around the area and I noticed that all of them were empty, not a sole on them.

Flyboy & Chillertek

So it was back into to Invercargill to fuel up for the run across to Balclutha through the Catlin's. I hadn't heard much about the Catlin's except it was a good motorcycle ride so that was good enough for me to plan my route with this road. I'm so glad we did it as it turned out to be one of the best roads of the whole trip.

Geoff and I had pulled over into this scenic lookout over the ocean to have a look at the scenery. It was here that Geoff noticed that his back guard was all wet. Looking into his top box the bottle of coke Dave gave him to carry had exploded covering his clothes and leaking out the bottom over the bike and onto the rear tyre. Lucky we pulled over and found it fairly early on. The views from the lookout were of beautiful beaches and ocean.

Tautuku Bay

Catlin's Road

The road flows through the Catlin's Conservation Park. This is one great motorcycle road, there was very little traffic on it at all, just a few tourists and the road and it wound its way through beautiful forests, hillsides and coastline. I knew we would be in for a treat when we passed a sign that said 56km winding road. For any Aussies wondering what this road is like I'd probably compare it with the Oxley highway back home. It really is that good, probably better.

It wasn't long into this road and I was constantly scraping out the centre stand in both directions. I remember one particularly nasty corner that I threw it into a left hander grinding the stand, I started to run wide and tried to turn it in tighter, to which I heard even more louder scraping noises and thinking shit. Geoff was watching all this behind probably laughing. Looks like when we got into Balclutha that the side stand had started to scrap away. That was getting to close for comfort for me.

Catlin's southern scenic route

Balclutha is only a small country town with not much there. We were staying at the Helensborough Motor inn here which was very cheap and clean. It was on the main highway but we had a unit at the back so we didn't really hear any traffic noise. We headed into town to the local pub to have some grub and few beers. Yet another fantastic day's riding and still with the shiny side up, just.

Just when you think it can't get any better, "POW" somehow it does just that, smacking you up the face and saying hey look how good this shit is! The Catlin's is an awesome bit of road!


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New Zealand - Day 7

Queenstown to Milford Sound to Te Anau- Feb 17

Unfortunately we only had the two nights in Queenstown, as you could really spend weeks here and thousands of dollars doing fun things. It really is the adventure central on the south island. As a matter of fact just about any road around here is also a motorcycling mecha. But we had to keep rolling forward and I was excited to be riding down the Queenstown-Kingston road and eventually the Milford sound road. I had been looking forward to Milford sound the whole trip with eager anticapation. Would it be fine and sunny(fat chance) or would it bucket down cats and dogs(more than likely).

After riding the Glenorchy road in perfect conditions the day before the Kingston road didn't quite seem as good in overcast conditions today, but still the ride and views were spectacular and the road was lots of fun. It is a crackingly good ride.

Queenstown - Kingston Road

Dave at the Kingston Motogp

The guys were obviously having lots of fun along this section as they didn't stop to take any photos at all, it was hard not to get a blurry photo as they blasted past.

It wasn't long before we got into Kingston and had a coffee at what looked like the only place in town. There didn't seem to be anything much in Kingston. So we kept on riding down to Te Anau which would be where our accommodation was for the night. When we got into Te Anau we fueled up and the weather looked like it was going to get worse as it was really starting to cloud over now.

Wayne wanted to keep going but we had decided to get some subway that was quite handily next to the petrol station. The idea was we could have a picnic lunch in Milford. We would eventually catch up to Wayne as there was only one way in and out.

The ride into Milford sound is one of those great motorcycle rides, you don't want to miss it. It has a bit of everything. The mountains along this section are especially tall and steep and there are big long forest sections of road where the tree canopy's come across the road, there were quite a few places along here that I looked into the forest and thought wow, this looks just like I am in the forests straight out of middle earth in the Lord of the Rings, half expecting to see orcs or elves running through the forest.

After riding through what seemed like endless forested hills we came out into a flat plain with mountains to either side. We could see up the valley towards Milford that rain would be coming soon, but I didn't put my wets on for another 15 minutes or so up the road, when it was just starting to lightly sprinkle.

It's lucky we did pull over in a sheltered side road underneath some trees near cascade creek as it started to rain not long after and it didn't let up again until we got back to Te Anau. There was some quite heavy rain too. If it rains 465 days a year here with 8 metres of rain then we must have hit about a metre of rain today. The funny part about it though was that everyone was loving riding in the rain on this road, nobody was complaining. Its hard to explain that but hopefully you will see from the video I shot from my gopro. The road changed between forest and then lake and back again. It was unfortunate that it was raining so much because we then didn't stop to take many photo's from here on in, and the scenery here was beautiful.

We stopped briefly at Bobs lookout and the mountains here had pierced the clouds. Mt Christina was 2,502m(8,209). You had to turn your head up to try to see the tops of them that's how steep they are and how close to the base you actually are. It's unreal to think that most of these peaks are taller than Australia's tallest mountain Mt Kosciuszko which is only 2,228m(7,310 ft) and that looks mostly flat compared to these monsters.

I put the gopro on just before we got to the Homer Tunnel heading up to the top of the pass. The Homer tunnel is an incredible engineering feat, it is bored straight under the mountain and runs for about 1.2kms and when you pop out the other side there are stunning views of mountain vistas and water falls. I love Geoff's comment in the video below when I pulled up next to him. "This is Fucking Awesome" and that's riding in the pissing rain. Normally sane riders don't say such things when riding in the rain. And you know what? It was fucking awesome, I'd do it again with no hesitation.





We rode down from Homer Tunnel down into Milford sound. It was bucketing down cats and dogs so it looked like our picnic was not going to happen. We ended up standing on the front porch of the cafe eating our subway under shelter. It's funny some guy came up to us and asked where he could buy subway cause there was nothing good here. We said "yeah you can get some about 120kms down the road". We should of said you can have this 6 inch bmt for $25. He walked off disappointed.

You couldn't see much in Milford so as soon as we'd finished lunch and a coffee we pretty much headed straight back out of there. By now my boots were soaked, my gloves and I could feel some water inside my leathers. Maybe I should have worn 2 dririder outfits. Water had seeped in onto my chest and my crotch. Ahh cold wet undies, that's a lot of fun for the man bits. The photo below is from my gopro as we were leaving, you couldn't see much at all as you can see.

Milford Sound 

I'd turned my gopro back onto video as we were climbing back up towards the homer tunnel. The water falls had more than doubled in numbers and size since we came through about an hour ago. This was one of the most amazing sites I've ever seen riding anywhere. Who said riding in the rain was bad, this was the best days riding in the rain I've ever experienced. Last time I was here these hills and roads were covered in snow and we had to drive out in snow chains, see photo below. Looks like the weather really likes me in Milford!

2007 Milford Road

Here's the amazing footage I got as we climbed back up towards homer tunnel which by now there was much more rain making bigger and better waterfalls. This has to be one of the most amazing things i've ever seen whilst riding a bike anywhere.

We didn't stop on the way back out as everyone was soaked, even Geoff who had water proof boots on had water inside them. We couldn't wait to get back to our motel and have a nice hot shower and some nice dry clothes. Then of course it was into town for beers and diner. The room we were staying in was fantastic after the drenching we just received, thank god I chose a good one here. Thanks for the recommendation Jules.

We had diner in town in Te Anau at this fantastic little pizza shop in the main street, my pizza was delicious. When we left there to head down to the pub there was a dazzling array of colours in the sky which kept changing over the space of about 10 minutes. I've never seen such a beautiful and dramatic storm filled sunset. The pictures do not do justice the colours in the sky that night.

Te Anau amazing sky

We had a few more beers in the pub before returning to our room for the night. We stayed at the Arran Motel which was fantastic and the best place we stayed at on the whole trip. The rooms were spacious, clean and the beds were fantastic. I slept well tonight.

The owners were motorcyclists themselves having a nice ducati cafe racer and a harley in the garage. I would highly recommend this place to anyone. Give them a go if your in the area. It was the wettest day we had and my boots, gloves and jacket got wet going to Milford so it was fantastic that we had such a good place to stay on this night in particular. The floor of the lounge area was covered in boots, gloves, jacket and pants all in front of the heater which ran pretty much all night. It was nice to put on dry gear in the morning.

One thing I noticed about the bikes even in the pouring rain was that the tyres on these bikes were great, I didn't have a single slip or slide and they felt almost as good as they do in the dry. Yet another magic day riding in this amazing country. Surely the best is now behind us and it can't be any better? Can it?????



Day 7 map.



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