Roadtrip New Zealand

Yesterday saw us up early for breakfast, and ready to head to Picton for the ferry to Wellington. We saddled up and left in good time, with a heavy and consistent rain falling from the skies, and no sign of any reprieve in the near future. We had just over two hours of riding to do to make the wharf so were not too concerned with the wet conditions.

The traffic was moderate and a lot of time was spent in the spray of cars, but the road initially was lovely as it ran alongside the coast. The smell of the ocean was very strong along this northern part of the South Island. Once we headed inland things became pretty mundane, and then with a final piece of road that was a constant set of first and second gear curves for roughly thirty kilometers we were well over the ride by the time we came to the ferry. The final section to Picton is highly not recommended by us for motorcyclists, and next time I would head back towards Blenheim to hook up with the main road instead of going the shorter distance! There were also oil patches in some of the corners, of which one nearly unseated us as it pitched the front wheel out a bit. There are also some intimidating vertical drops to your left if you happen to go wide. This is definitely not the kind of road for motorcycles with pillions, and an unhappy end to our southern sojourn.

The ferry was a different ship this time, and one I wouldn’t want to travel on again. We were crammed in front of a contractors van which had been parked in the middle of the motorcycle parks, and had very little points to tie down. This in itself was a problem, but then the contractor came back and went ballistic at us for parking there, and did not seem to care that it was not us that decided that would be the place. After quite a lot of arguing he seemed to calm down and he withdrew his threat of cutting aluminum sheets and aiming all the shavings at our chain. It was all a bit much though for Myra, she really is getting near the end of her romance with road trips, and this altercation really upset her, there were even a few tears. The ferry journey was long and boring, riddled with loud snoring or screaming children, depending on where you decided to take seating. We were very happy to find the bike still in one piece when we docked and rode out into the North Island without a backwards glance.

We are staying in central Wellington at the Marksman’s Motor Inn. It is adjacent to the Basin Reserve, Wellington’s home to cricket. Last night we wandered the one kilometer into town and found a lovely Thai restaurant, where we had some wonderful dishes and some wine, before hitting the sack.

Today we are heading up the east coast to Hawera, roughly four hours of riding away. The weather is again quite foreboding, but not as bad as yesterday, and not cold at all. The morale of the troops is a bit low, so we’ve cancelled plans to spend two days in Hawera, and just booked one night’s accommodation. Myra really misses our own bed and home, and our cats. It’s been nearly three weeks on the back of a bike traveling through coastal routes and small towns, constantly on the move for her. We’ve never had a holiday anything like this so I can completely understand where she is coming from. Hopefully the weather clears and we see some lovely things today, and our endpoint is nice. There doesn’t look to be much to see on the way to South Taranaki though, but maybe I will be surprised. We are going to stop in at Foxton Beach and see where I spent a good deal of time growing up with my Grandparents today, and look at the creek where I used to whitebait as a nipper. This will have some fond memories for me, but
I think Myra is focusing on home so we may expedite the last few legs of our trip and have no more rest days. I am sure if the sun shines and we spend the night by a beach she’ll come right though, so fingers crossed for the weather.