New Zealand - Day 6 Taupo to New Plymouth

DAY 6 - Wednesday 22nd

Todays ride from Taupo to New Plymouth is not exactly a long ride but it is one of NZ's top ride's which is the Forgotten World Highway or the Forgotten Highway for short. I'd wondered how and why it had gotten it's name but this would soon become apparent. I'd read on forums and websites about this ride as one of the must do ride's and I would have to agree but you need to ride this road with much caution.

Riding out of Taupo we headed northwest around the lake and onto highway 32 which took us south towards Mt Ruapehu again but we soon turned right towards Taumarunui, it was a short trip into town with a few twisties thrown into it and you could see the peak of the mountain in the distance which means we couldn't be too far from it. We filled up before tackling the Forgotten Highway as there are no services along its route. The forgotten highway is only about 150km of twisty fun with some gravel and an ancient tunnel.

Stu & Rick looking forward to the challenge

Just out of Taumarunui  we came across a slow moving 4x4 which I immediately overtook as did the others. Then for some inexplicable reason the 4x4 driver decided he didn't like a group of bike riders passing him and wildly flew around the others, I caught a glimpse of it in my mirrors, 1 or 2 bends later I looked in my mirror and he was sitting 2 feet from my rear wheel. WTF?

I waved him around with my leg because there was no way I was taking my right hand off the throttle as he was so close it would have been disastrous. No sooner had I done that he flew around me within my lane(Fucker) and took off down the road, as the road was twisty he didn't get away too fast and what I witnessed next was some of the most abominable driving I think I've ever witnessed. He was going around both left and right hand bends starting from the opposite lane and crossing the center line to end up in the correct lane and most of these were blind corners, I was expecting him to have a head on crash. Luck there wasn't anyone coming the other way. Then about 5 kms down the road the guy pulled over on the side of the road. I was cautious passing him as I wasn't sure what he was up to and whether he would quickly pull out onto the road again but we passed by and he just sat there until he was no longer in view.

The road sweeps its way through low flat hills with creek crossings and farming land abounds. The roads can get tight in sections and you need to be careful as going into a bend the road can have several elevation changes within the one bend. This can really upset the suspension on the Tracer and you're not sure what speed you can go into the bend. Two identical curved bends can have 2 different speeds due to the road surface conditions. I had the suspension bottom out several times along here with the pucker factor rising whenever it happened.

The scenery through the forgotten highway is absolutely stunning and everywhere was so green. They must get a lot of rain here and I'm glad it was a nice and sunny day as we rode through here. It would be a treacherous ride in the wet and I wouldn't like to take it on.

Taking a left turn to Whangamomona it was only a short 47kms to our lunch destination but it took us about an hour. This road obviously has a high rate of bike crashes and when you ride it you can understand why. Nearly all of the bends have unsign posted corners, elevation changes within the bend sometimes there could be up to 2 or 3 changes within the one bend, gravel on bends, rock falls and tree falls, and then there's a section of gravel road. This road has everything you've ever dreamed of riding on a bike all on the one road. Once out here you really get the feel that you're in banjo country.

The road has about 15km of dirt on it, normally I'm pretty ok with doing some dirt but they must have recently put down some large blue metal stones which made riding on the dirt a bit tricky. Speeds on the dirt were down to around 35-40km as there was no really discernable wheel track to ride in and there was a lot of large rocks which wasn't favourable with the road tyres on the bikes we had. I found the bike was skating around on the rocks and the best place to ride was actually on the wrong side of the road.

We came upon a bridge over a river in the middle section of the road. The river was not clear and beautiful like most of the river streams on the South Island but rather brown and murky. The road turned to tar again and I was cheering but it was briefly lived as it turned to dirt again around the following corner. This also happen another 2 more times and I had my hopes of tar seal dashed a couple of times.

The road through the dirt section however was very scenic with large rock faces lurching right up beside the road, I found myself looking up into the scenery several times instead of watching were I was going.

After the gravel finally finished I was happy to be back on the tar and the speeds increased again. It wasn't much longer before we came upon the Moki tunnel. This little gem is from a century ago and looks it in every way. The floor of the tunnel was muddy and slippery and the walls were soaked in water and moss.

Geoff at tunnel entrance

Moki Tunnel

This tunnel had been built about 100 years ago by the early settlers in this area and it really doesn't look like its changed at all in that time. I thought that this tunnel could collapse at any moment when I was riding through it. It looks like the roof is only there to stop rocks from falling onto you as you pass through the tunnel. The tunnel has no lights inside and was very dark, you really couldn't see much further than a few meters in front inside.







The riding after the tunnel towards Whangamomona was also very good and we came into the Republic soon after. Not sure why the people of Whangamomona wanted to become a republic and leave New Zealand but it probably had something to do with them wanting to marry their sisters.



You have to be on the ball riding this road being very careful of gravel patches, tight corners and then the unexpected, like rock falls. I saw several large boulders laying on the road then there was this beauty. The road was 3/4 covered by a fallen tree, the council had been out and put up a temporary 50 zone sign and a few cones. It seems that the local council has also forgotten about this highway and doing any repair works.

We were soon in the republic of Whangamomona and both Andrew and Geoff had told me to try the Whanga burger so that's exactly what we did. Thanks for the tip fellas the whanga burger was fantastic and lived up to the hype. Quite a quaint little pub in the middle of nowhere on a road to nowhere.

Whanga Burger

I tried one of the these DB Export Citrus drinks with lunch, it was only 2% alcohol and was really refreshing, a little like a can of solo or lift with a dash of alcohol. I didn't want a full on beer riding this road as it was pretty demanding.

Leaving Whangamomona behind we headed towards Stratford and Mt Taranaki another extinct volcano. The road out is even better starting with the Whangamomona saddle and after that 2 more saddles, I forgot their names with 25km of twisty fun. The road then opens up before heading into Stratford where we stopped for fuel. This bit was so much fun that I forgot to stop and take any photo's as the red mist descended and the riding was very spirited!

It was then only a short ride up to Dawson's Falls which is a lookout on the southern side of Mt Taranaki. The road was very narrow here and wound its way through a dense undergrowth of forest. Arriving at the look out we were disappointed to see that the peak was covered in cloud however we did see glimpses of the snow covered peak.

Cloud covered Mt Taranaki

There was a cafe at the lookout but it was closed and there wasn't really much else except a large Maori totem pole. So we kept rolling on around the base of the mountain with coast and ocean visible to our left and the volcano to our right. It was along here we took another wrong turn or should I say failed to make a turn and went the wrong way as we legged it into New Plymouth from Okato. It's so easy to miss turns here as some roads just have a road name and nothing else to direct you.





Arriving in New Plymouth we discovered that there was an American muscle car rally on all week. That's why it was so hard to book any decent accommodation here and the place we stayed at The Flamingo Motel was straight out of the 60's or 70's but with 2017 prices. There were a whole bunch of restored old American cars in town and at the motel.  Some of them were very well restored. There must have been about 15 muscle cars in the motel we were staying at.

The Black Pearl didn't really play up on us today as we kept to the plan of leaving it running when we stopped briefly so all was good. The Forgotten Highway was a challenging piece of road and a must do. Not the smoothest or best bit of road I've been on but it was lots of fun.

Today's map reference

New Zealand - Day 5 Palmerston North to Taupo

DAY 5 - Tuesday 21st

Today was the first day that there was no rain. Hooray!! We were staying in central Palmy so we wandered down to the centre of town for a look around and get breakfast. I would have liked to spend a bit more time here as Palmy is a pretty big place, they've got just about every restaurant you care to name of any nationality too.

Wandering down the street it's funny that we bumped into this place only 200metres from where our motel was. Ironic and appropriately named considering the circumstances!

The city square is quite big and open with there being plenty of space to roam around. Nice place it's a lot bigger than I thought as have been most of the places we've been to, unlike the South Island most towns are quite small. It was pretty quiet out this morning and it was around 8:30am shops were open but no one around, it was a bit bizarre as there was people everywhere yesterday afternoon.

Palmerston North City Centre

Another Clock in Palmerston North

Stu Coffee - Bowl o Soup Coffee sir?

During breakfast discussion surrounded the Black Pearl and what to do. As it started fine once cooled down we all were in agreement that if we stop for photos on the side of the road that we need to leave the thing running otherwise we risk it not starting. It fired up fine in the morning, just hot starts seemed to be a problem. What a great advert for Triumph, scratch ever buying one of those POS off my list. We fueled up in Palmy before heading out to fielding and then on up to highway one via Vinegar Hill. I loved this little section of twistys it was so much fun. I've read about this on Andrews blog a few times and now I know why he comes this way.

Scenic Lookout

We then took the road to Hunterville and turned off down this great little twisty backroad to Whanganui. Thanks for the tip off where the turn off was Andrew we didn't miss it and stayed on track. A few bends into this road a logging truck came flying around one of the bends partly on our side reminding us that it's a weekday and to be careful. The scenery along here is much the same as other areas we'd been through hilly scenic farmland. Whilst it is very beautiful I realised that most places on the north island looked very much similar, but the riding is still a lot of fun.

Arriving in Whanganui the signage here was also non existent and we rode into town until I checked the GPS on my phone and realised the road we came in on was where we needed to be. We went back and looked for some fuel I could hear my chain making a horrible noise so time to oil it. Whilst checking the chain I noticed it was as tight as a guitar sting. WTF? I checked Stu's Tracer and his was the same. All the bikes chains were way too tight. We had no tools to adjust them so we oiled them and continued on. The can of chain lube the bike shop gave us also ran out here too. I knew that 1 can that was only 3/4 full wasn't going to last the trip.

We then headed up highway 4 towards the national park. This road was a good bit of fun with more sweeping bends over hills but there was a fair bit more traffic on the road as it was a main highway. There were quite a few sections of road here under repair and one section where half of the road was washed away and they were working on fixing it. We came upon Raukawa Falls. As far as waterfalls go totally underwhelming so we quickly moved on.

We continued into Raetihi for a spot of afternoon tea/lunch. I'd noticed that most places in NZ the coffee is very weak and we were continually ordering double shots wherever we went but the food in NZ is really good quality.

Almond Caramel Slice and double shot cappuccino

The ride up from Raetihi to the National Park was more or less straight but Mt Ruapehu suddenly appeared looming large on the right hand side. A pretty impressive monster to behold as mile after mile we rode it got larger and larger until we turned off and headed up towards the village at the base of the mountain. The riding up here was good and the temp dropped from 25°C down to 19°C as we went up. Mt Ruapehu is 2797m(9177ft) which is higher than Australia's highest peak at a measly 2228m(7310ft) yep this is a monster compared with our peaks. Ruapehu is also an active volcano and Geoff was threatening to throw the Black Pearl into the fires of Mt Doom..

Mt Ruapehu

It's a monster

Mt Ruapehu is a tourist mecca during the winter as a ski resort, during the summer it brings out the trampers and day trippers and us bike riders and Lord of the Rings sightseers. There were choppers flying up and down the mountain and the ski lifts were still taking people up to the top. The road up to the village was in excellent condition and twisty but there was no flying along it as we were too busy admiring the scenery. The views from the top were spectacular to say the least.

We rode up as far as you could go to the small village at the top. There were ski lodges wedged in the volcanic rock terrain which looked more like something from mars. Quite unusal terrain that I'd never seen before. The volcanic rock was hard to touch and walk on but I noticed the soil around it was very soft underfoot.

The final stretch from Mt Ruapehu to Lake Taupo was only a short 100km run. The road skirted the bottom of the 3 peaks here and then made its way to the Lake itself. The road twists its way around the edge of the lake but this is a main road and traffic is very heavy making progress slow. There were a few people going for a swim in the lake. The lake is massive in size and from the southern edge we could see the town of Taupo on the northern side about 20kms away.

Geoff wondering if he could walk on water

Arriving in Taupo the town was very busy with a lot of tourists. There were people swimming along the waters edge and the pubs along the water front were full of people. Taupo is a bustling little tourist town and would be a good place to spend a few days if time permitted.

Taupo

We stayed in the Lake Taupo Motor Inn here and the accommodation was fantastic. The booking.com people had gotten the details wrong but the lady sorted it out for us and upgraded our room in the process. They had a spa and large pool that we put to good use over a few beers before we headed down to one of the restaurants for diner. Geoff also managed to catch up with his daughter who just happened to be holidaying here in NZ. We were lucky today with the Black Pearl as it stayed running during most stops except for fuel and when we did turn it off we stopped for lunch or fuel break long enough and it restarted on it own.


Today's map reference

New Zealand - Day 4 Taihape to Palmerston North

DAY 4 - Monday 20th

We had woken up and the rain had stopped and the roads were drying out quickly. Today we just grabbed a quick maccas breaky so we could get going quickly. Heading south from Taihape the destination for today was to be Palmerston North which is only 110kms away, however I had a 440km twisty little back route devised with the help of Andrew from the famous Bandit Rider Blog.

Turning off at Mangaweka we took the Manawatu Scenic route which is another excellent biking road and is quite easy to follow, when we first turned onto the road I thought we must be on the wrong road as it turned to dirt straight away. Er what happened? Turns out it was freshly tarred it looked like dirt but wasn't. There are a couple of turn offs along this route to be wary off though otherwise you could get lost. The signage is small and hard to notice in places. Much like the southern scenic route on the Catlins - South Island it is sign posted with a scenic route sign as follows.

Manawatu Scenic Route

Stu & Me

The road is quite winding in sections and with sweeping curves over hills and most of it has no corner advisory signs so you need to take it easy. Next stop was in Ashurst and we then turned up Saddle Rd over to Woodville, there were some good views from up this twisting hill and at the top we found there were hundreds of wind farm generators. From the hill we could see our destination of Palmerston North it was probably only 15km away.

Looking back to Ashurst and Palmy North

Ashurst

I stopped in for a quick photo at the wind farm lookout whilst the others continued along the road below, I saw them passing by but I don't think any of them saw me standing up at the look out, there could have been a bus load of swedish bikini girls with their tits out and I don't think they would have seen it!.

There were literally hundreds of the things scattered all over the hills here so obviously this must be a really windy area, luckily not today and it was our first day without rain.

We continued on towards Waipukurau where we had to pull over to put our wets back on as more rain approached us. The road from Woodville up to Waipukurau was mostly just straight highway and nothing much in the way of fun, it was pretty heavily trafficked too as it was the main road to Napier Hastings. The rain only lasted for about 5 minutes and then was dry again so the wets came back off at lunch. Annoying putting this stuff on and off in a short space of time.

Stopping in at Waipukurau for a spot of lunch at the bakery I filled up with a chicken salad roll which was brilliant. I noticed they had won awards for their pies and Geoff mentioned that the pies were really good.

Returning to the bikes Rick was looking at the suspension on the bikes and then pulled out his tyre pressure gauge to check the pressures as they had cooled down over lunch. All the bikes tyre pressures were found to be at 42F and 45R. No wonder the bikes were sliding around so much in the wet the pressure was too high and the tyres can't get enough heat into them. Obviously done by the bike hire shop to increase the tyre life. We let the pressures down to recommended levels 36F & 42R. I'm really starting to wonder about this bike hire place.

Leaving Waipukurau and heading to another equally unpronounceable maori named town we stopped at this sign as I hadn't seen any signs for a while. This didn't look right and then when we went another 2 or 3 kms up the road and noticed a beach on our right hand side we stopped and turned around and headed back again. If anything the beach should have been on our left side not the right. There was a small tiny sign in the middle of a curve just before Porangahau saying Wimbledon which was the way we were supposed to be going. Signage in NZ is quite poor and compound that with the unpronounceable Maori names and not being able to spell the name of the town makes navigation without a gps quite difficult.

Yeay we're going the wrong way again!!!!!

The road to Wimbledon has nice sweeping curves over hills through farming country. We came upon the place with the longest name in the world. Later on we asked a couple of maori people how to say it and even they were having trouble. Whathafukdoesitsayinenglishpleas?

Lads at the longest place name

Stopping in Wimbledon Geoff stalled the Tiger and it then refused to start. Fuck! and we are in the middle of nowhere with no phone reception. As we are unsure what's wrong the batteries were swapped out of the Street triple and the tiger. The Tiger fired back up again and we made for Dannevirke and then straight to Palmerston North to go to Supercheap auto to see if we could get the battery tested. We were thinking its not being charged but can't be sure in the middle of nowhere with no tools.

Wimbledon Main Street

Wimbledon Tavern

The Tavern was closed today, a note on the door said they were taking the owner to the Doctors and a local pulled up in a ute and confirmed the proprietor wasn't well. Geoff noticed they guy in the ute had a couple of guns in the back of his ute, yep we are in banjo country here.

More battery problems?

The road into Dannevirke from Wimbledon was a fantastic little ride with all sorts of twisty bends, I came around a corner and there were sheep standing on the side of the road which made the heart beat a little faster as I wasn't sure if they were going to dart out in front of me, luckily for me they didn't because that would have ended badly.

The ride back into Palmerston North was interesting just out of town where it went through Manawatu Gorge, which was a fun bit of road but far with too much traffic on it. The road twists it way around the river here but didn't have time to stop and take snaps as we needed to get to supercheap before they closed at 5:30pm.

Riding into Palmy I was keeping an eye peeled for a silver connie but couldn't see one, little did I know Andrew from the Bandit rider blog was waiting at a set of traffic lights in his car. We went straight to supercheap. The battery tested ok, so we swapped them back into the respective bikes. So it must have some other issues. Andrew turned up and we said hello and a bit of a chat about what was happening. He wasn't surprised in the slightest that a triumph wouldn't start and we all laughed about it. He suggested we go to his house where he has tools and a multi meter to do some testing. If he knew what he was in for I'm sure he would have never offered!

I forgot to take any photos from this point as we were all busy trying to find out what was wrong with the Tiger. The side stand switch was checked and metered, clutch switch checked and all the electricals pulled out and examined. There was some cussing. Relays and fuses were checked and hammers swung into action. It was charging at 14V when it was running. Then some more cussing. After an hour or more of stuffing around and Geoff was acting like a hysterical old woman we thought we were going to have to slap some sense into him. Finally we decided that it wasn't going to start, admit defeat and we'd have to unpack the tiger. It was here Geoff pulled out Ricks camera bag, that Rick had conveniently left unzipped in the top box. A camera and two lenses went crashing onto the concrete. Then there was a bucket load more cussing. Could anything else possibly go wrong? I'm sure Andrew's neighbours must have thought a bikie gang had moved in next door!

Photo blatantly stolen borrowed from Bandit Riders Blog

We had to give up and ring the bike hire place in the end. His response was somewhat underwhelming to say the least, stating "yeah it does that sometimes". Then he said "Try it again for me". No shit it started straight away and without any hint of the slow cranking or the no cranking it was exhibiting before. So Geoff tried it 3 more times and it fired every time. I think this sent Geoff over the edge into irrational thought cursing and swearing and saying he was going to sell his triumph when he got home. Geoff said "This bike is cursed, It's the Black Pearl, arrrrrrrrrgh" RE: Pirates of the Caribbean film and from that point on she was called 'The Black Pearl'. Rolling out of Andrews place Geoff almost smashed off his down pipe with one of the panniers. I had to shake my head, it's a wonder Andrew didn't tell us to F*ck off right then and never come back. Yep I guess it can get worse. Some people should not be allowed to ride bikes with panniers. Yes Geoff you're one of them, you crashed into each of our bikes and a house for f*ck sake!

I invited Andrew to dinner to which he accepted, not sure why he wanted to hang around a bunch of completely insane lunatics like us but it was good to sit down and chat with him about bikes, riding in NZ and everything else in general. Similarly to Geoff and Jules previously we hit it off pretty good and it felt like I'd know Andrew for a long time when the fact was we'd never met before. It would have been good to get a ride in with him if circumstances had been a little different.

I'd mentioned how many times we got lost already and he laughed and asked us where are we going tomorrow. I showed him our route and he quickly said "well you're going to get lost again unless you turn here"(shows me a pic of another tiny little road sign on facebook). Yup thanks mate I'm sure we would have missed that one too but we didn't thanks to your forewarning. Cheers Bud!

It was fantastic to meet you Andrew, another 'highlight' of the tour there's no doubt. A big 'Thank you' from all the guys for letting us use your tools and was great to catch up and just chat with other like minded bike riders. As I said if you're ever over here let us know and we'll catch up.

Selfie fun with Bandit Rider

Today's Map Reference