Yesterday was the last of the scheduled five hour plus legs, planned up through Taranaki into the Waikato district, via the Surf Highway which passes to the west of Mt Taranaki and runs through New Plymouth. I woke up with a throat that felt as if I had swallowed barb wire and coughing up lovely batches of green phlegm, some type of infection it seems. This was just the start of what will probably remain in our memory as one of the more trying days of our trip!
We had a brilliant breakfast of muesli, then packed up the bike and said good bye to Hawera. The weather really was fantastic, hardly a cloud in the sky and temperatures to roast a stationary motorcyclist. Everything began innocuously enough, with a very pleasant journey around the coast, snow tipped Mt Taranaki keeping it’s watchful eye on us. We went through New Plymouth which was the first time for me. My estranged Grandfather lives here and I can see why, it’s very picturesque and on this sunny day looked very inviting.
Once you pass through the Taranaki region you move into the Waikato, home of Hamilton and several thousand cowbells. A very memorable incident was a massive two trailer truck fully locking up in front of us and partially jackknifing, we were metres from the rear of it and covered in a cloud of its tyre smoke when everything came to a stand still. The driver had failed to notice a car turning right in front of it, parked in the road waiting for oncoming traffic. It was a very close incident for the poor car, which would have had a terrifying scene playing out in the rear view mirror. Everyone unscathed though and a sheepish wave out of the truck cab, and onwards we went.
Our main goal for the road trip was to circumnavigate New Zealand, which has meant keeping as close to the coast as we could if there were roads available. Today this meant we would go to great lengths, through poor trip planning and some very bad luck. After you pass through Awakino the main highway heads inland towards Te Kuiti and Waitomo, but we took a left turn to try and take the more direct route to Kawhia. What followed was roughly 100km of the most remote farmland I have ever seen, most of it over gravel roads. Many parts of the road which were tarmac had been baked by the sun and had a top layer of black liquid, so the going was dusty, sticky and slow. This wasn’t really too much of an issue however, with the speeds down so much Myra found some new entertainment on the rear of the bike by taking moving snapshots, some of which will make it to this site. Even I enjoyed getting to grips with a Sprint on gravel, something we had not though we would encounter at all.
After a grueling couple of hours of this type of riding, we came to the bridge that leads you to Kawhia feeling very pleased with ourselves, only to find it was closed. It was a horrifying sight which materialized as we rounded the final corner. It was definitely shut, and there was no way we were going to be able to sneak over. After consulting our GPS, the only alternate was to backtrack and go all the way into Waitomo and up past Otorahanga, the very way we had purposely avoided, and then back to the coast, a detour of nearly two hours and another hundred plus kilometers. After over five and a half hours riding time, you can imagine the feeling, we were gutted. This was especially so because Kawhia was only about 10 kilometers over the bridge! We could practically smell it!
So we reluctantly turned around and made our way into Waitomo. Myra declared an emergency stop and we wandered into the café there. Her eyes had gone blood red and her contacts were moving around, she could hardly keep her eyelids open there was too much irritation. Considerable time was spent trying to rectify this but in the end she decided to ride without them, which meant she’d be riding in fuzzy ignorance. We also discussed cancelling our Kawhia plans and staying right there in Waitomo, but it was only another hour to go and we were up for it.
Eventually we did pull into Kawhia, tired, sore and fed up! This place is very off the beaten track, about fifty kilometers south of Raglan. It is a bay with a low tide that reaches right back towards the ocean, and a sandy bottom which exposes itself as the water recedes. Apparently it is similar to Hot Water Beach, and you can dig into the sand and have warm water fill the hole. It’s something we intended on trying but were just too exhausted to do after nearly eight hours riding. We hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and were starved, so after checking in to our very spartan accommodation, we wandered into the small cluster of shops overlooking the harbour.. All that was available from the various places serving food were fish n chips, something that does occur in many of the smaller towns. Not exactly nutritious, but we did not complain, and the fish we were served in the Kawhia boat club is without a doubt the best deep fried battered fish I have ever eaten. So fresh and cooked to perfection, it just melted away in great chunks. It was absolute perfection, far too good to feel guilty about eating.
We wandered back to our room and stared at the TV for a while, but were so tired we were both asleep by 10:30pm. An end to a very long day, through some of the more beautiful farmland we’ve ever seen. There is hardly a soul in the parts of the Waikato we traveled through today; it was even eerie at times. We spent more time passing lambs and sheep that had made bids for freedom and wandered the roads with us, than we did other vehicles. We saw more four wheeled motorcycles in transit than cars. You can tell not much traffic comes this way by the way the livestock in paddocks are alarmed at the sound of us, something more urban beasts do not flinch at.
So I awake today to begin the final leg. After twenty days of traveling through all sorts of weather and climates, we are less than three hours from home. I have mixed feelings about this, but Myra is over the moon. We were planning on striking north to Raglan before coming inland, but from the looks of it that may be 50km of gravel, so will instead backtrack towards Ngutunui before turning north for the final run home. It will be great to see our friends again, and to give the bike a very deserving wash! Auckland, we’ll see you soon.
