Riding New Zealand - Queenstown to Kingston

This road is another piece of motorcycling paradise. Leaving Queenstown we headed down south towards Kingston. The road here goes out in between the Remarkables mountain range(aptly named) and Lake Wakatipu. This road is also much like the Glenorchy road with sweeping bends around the fore shore of the lake. The road rises up and down all the way along with great views of the lake and surrounding mountains.

Remarkables at back, Lake Wakatipu and Queenstown at bottom.

The road surface along here was pretty good and not much traffic. This is truely God's country, and i am sure that on the 6th day when God created the harley, he saw this and on the 7th day he traded it for something lighter and faster.

Its only another short ride at around 48kms but it is an awesome piece of road, probably worth doing a couple of times.

Riding New Zealand - Queenstown to Cromwell

Heading out from Queenstown to Cromwell after passing through Frankton the road winds it way into the Kawarau Gorge. The road follows along the Kawarau river with its lovely blue-green waters. It soon passes the world famous AJ Hackets bungy Bridge.

After the bungy bridge the road follows through the gorge. The road here is of pretty good quality but is very busy with lots of tourist traffic. All the same it would still be a good ride at around 60kms.

Riding New Zealand - Queenstown to Glenorchy

The road from Queenstown out to Glenorchy is an absolute cracker. Its a very short ride at only 46kms but what a hoot of a road. It reminds me of the Great Ocean Rd but with much better views. It's a dead end as well so you will need to return the same way, what a shame to have to ride this again. We nearly didn't make the trip because it was late in the afternoon being around 4:30pm but i'm glad we did it.

The road out of Queenstown follows the shore line of Lake Wakatipu. It leaves the shore line briefly to go through a narrow forested section before returning to the lake again. Road surface here was excellent and was nice and wide except one section where it was single lane along a rockwall.

Before long the winding lake side views are over and you are coming into the small town of Glenorchy. There's not much here, a pub and cafe and not much else. It would be a nice place to over nighter and have beers......

It was just as much fun driving back to Queenstown as it was getting to Glenorchy. Oh how i wished for my R1 today.

Here is a short 1m 20sec video i made on the way back from Glenorchy. As you can see this is a sweet ass piece of tarmac.

Riding New Zealand - Lindis Pass

Lindis Pass is a Mountain Pass in between the town of Omarama and Cromwell. We travelled this road from Omarama in the north to Cromwell in the south on our way down to Queenstown. The road is only moderately winding as it has much more sweeper type bends even when it gets to the High point of the Pass it only tightens up a little as it crests the mountain and comes back down again. After this its lots of straights and sweepers down to Cromwell but with great mountain Scenery. Road surface is quite good.

Riding New Zealand - Queenstown to Wanaka

All roads from Queenstown are superb motorcycling roads no matter which direction you travel in. It's hard to go wrong here really. Leaving Queenstown and heading out to Arrowtown via the Gorge Rd is a great start, just have to watch slow moving tourist traffic as the shotover jet, canyon swing and white water rafting is conducted up this road. The pic below shows the Gorge Rd from the Gondola.

Its a short 20km trip to Arrowtown through the country side with mostly straight bits with a few sweeping bends. Arrowtown is a quiet but beautiful little place on the banks of the arrow river.

This was the Ford of Bruthien in the Fellowship of the Ring

Leaving Arrowtown we head south towards the main Highway between Queenstown and Cromwell. Its no far till you turn off onto the Crown Range Rd which climbs dramatically winding its way up into the mountains towards Cardrona Ski fields.

The road here is pretty good but can have a bit of slow moving traffic on it. Also quite a bit of grit on the lower end of the road. There are spectacular lookouts points along here as well. You can see the road rises very quickly here.

Looking out towards Queenstown

After climbing up over the range the road steadily winds its way down through the valley to Cardrona. This would be superb riding in warm weather After this the road follows the valley floor till it comes down to Wanaka on the Lake shore.

Above - Cardrona township

Above - Wanaka

At around 80kms this is a short but brilliant ride, just need to be careful of grit and slow moving vehicles. You can see the elevation change on the map below the steep climb is 700m in 11kms.

Riding New Zealand - Geraldine to Mt Cook

After my recent holiday to New Zealand i thought i'd share with you some of the awesome roads that i saw there and drove on, unfortunately i didn't actually get to ride on these roads but don't worry they are on my bucket list. These roads are on the main land, or for the non locals the south Island. We spent 11 days driving around the south island from Christchurch to Mt Cook. Then from Mt cook to Queenstown. Then Queenstown to Dunedin. Then Dunedin back to Christchurch.

These are my thoughts on just a few of the roads that i went on without any real local knowledge of the areas. Some of the NZ riders might be able to shed some light on some better roads than these.

Geraldine to Fairlie
After turning off the main highway down from Christchurch which is very straight with lots of traffic as its the main road down to Dunedin the traffic drops off to next to nothing with large snow capped mountains looming in the distance. From the Hwy its a quick trip across to the pretty town of Geraldine, after that its rolling hills with slow sweeping bends connected with straights with scenic views which after a while the road starts to climb up into the hills. This is MacKenzie Country.

There is a short winding section that climbs up to the top of a hilltop where the Farm Barn Cafe is at the top. There's also an nice lookout over the surrounding mountains. This would be a great Sunday morning ride. Just after pulling up at the lookout a guy from Geraldine pulled up on a CBR1100 superblackbird. We had a chat for a couple of minutes before his mates came along on what looked like a fireblade and another sportsbike i cant remember and he had to jump back aboard and chase after them. Looks like they were having fun.

Fairlie to Lake Tekapo
This section is more or less just a some straights connected by some big sweepers that run around the base of the mountain ranges here. Its very scenic especially when you come out to Lake Tekapo. Magic views across the lake from the township.

Lake Tekapo to Mt Cook
From Lake Tekapo along the Twizel road it is fairly straight across the highlands road until is comes down upon Lake Pukaki with some big sweepers here that wind around the bottom section of the lake with some equally big views.

The turn off to Mt Cook is just after the Dam wall/Spillway at the bottom of Lake Pukaki. The road that leads up to Mt Cook is an awesome peice of tarmac. The road surface was excellent with big sweepers that run all the way along the side of the lake with the mountain range on the other side of the road. The road meanders along with Mt Cook and other mountains looming ever larger ahead.

Until you come out at Mt Cook village which isn't very big at all.

There were some corners that had grit on them that the council must put down to help cars with grip in the icy conditions but most of this was gone when we came through. Most surfaces were pretty good. It was pretty chilly at Mt Cook being only 9°C max with the min being around -2°C.

Blog Title

It's interesting looking at other peoples motorcycle blogs and see others points of view and their experiences. What i also find fascinating is the titles of their blogs. Behind each and every one of these blog titles would be some sort of story. Whether its just the users nickname, or more of their attitude of how they ride.

If your wondering where i got the name"Road to nowhere"from for my web blog it was really quite simple.About 15 years ago myself and my mate went on a ride up to the putty road, which to get there was about a 5 Hour ride. When we got to the top 16km section of twisties we turned around and did that section about 3 times up and down. Then we went and stayed in the pub in singleton to drink and chat about the days activities. The destination wasn't singleton that was just a place to rest up for the night before doing it over again and back home the next day.

When my Boss asked me on monday morning where i went for a ride to on the weekend and the response was 'up to singleton', he wanted to know why we went to singleton. I found it a bit hard to explain it to him that we didn't go to singleton for anything as we only went to ride the road. Needless to say he had difficulty trying to understand why we went there. I guess if your not a biker and into that kind of thing you wouldn't understand.

And yet another time, this time the with the outlaws. We were going on a ride up the buckets way to Walcha then across the Oxley Hwy and stay the night at Gingers Creek. They first asked where the hell gingers creek was then why i was going there. It was the same dumb blank look on their faces that my boss had given me nearly 10 years previous, when i tried to explain that we weren't going to gingers creek that was just the stopping point on the way.

So is seemed quite appropriate to me that i call my blog

because thats exactly what 99% of all my riding has been. I have really only been places to ride the roads and see some spectacular scenery. The only exception i can think of is my trips to Philip Island for the 500cc Gp and MotoGP. Then i had a reason to go to the destination.

The title photo was taken on one of these trips to Philip Island. It was 2001 and as we ascended Mt Hotham from Mt Beauty the weather deteriated quite considerably. It was 5°C at the top of Mt Hotham that morning about 10am. With thick fog and lots of snow on the sides of the road. Looking back now the photo's were pretty special.

Mt Hotham 2001 5°C



View of bikes from the Villa



Well i'm off on Friday to New Zealands South Island for a much deserved holiday. See you all when i get back.

Forget Knee down, now it's elbow down

Check out Casey Stoner, none of this knee down pussy shit for him, just some hardcore elbow down racing .

Good to see Casey come 3rd in San Marino with only 5 rounds to go. Lets hope he gets up, he sure deserves it.

Nothing much to report here riding wise, it was fathers day today so i had many beers and watched the GP San Marino. Woo hoo only 2 weeks to go and i'm on holidays.

So out with this......

And in with this.......

Yep a 10 Day holiday to New Zealands South Island. I'll be checking out all the roads and noting them down for good sportsbike riding.