Eddie's random adventures and DR650 build thread
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Eddieb 1 week, 2 days ago.
So on Boxing Day Jennifer kicked me out of the house and said don’t come back till you’ve had your fill of riding, and who am I to argue with my lovely wife?
Day 1‘s destination was Glinks Gully on the coast West of Dargaville.
The first half of the day was fairly uninteresting, just getting through the mess that is Auckland, after the Dargaville turnoff however things got much more interesting.
Why aren’t Aucklanders up here every weekend! there’s some stunning roads around Dargaville.
Camping off the bike.
Day 2 I was going to start with a ride down Poutu Point to NZ’s oldest wooden lighthouse, but the tides were wrong.
The ‘Home of Lost Soles’ at Glinks Gully
I found an awesome track just a few km from Glinks Gully. A new track for it will get loaded after I’m back from the holidays.
After gassing up in Dargaville it was North, ultimately heading for 90 Mile Beach.
There’s were miles and miles of more great roads, some dead straight some fast and flowing curves. Some of the best gravel riding I’ve done in NZ I reckon.
The gravel from Dargaville took me right up to SH12 near Rawene so it was onto the ferry there over the Kaipara Harbour.
90 Mile Beach was awesome as usual
Day 2 ended camped at Spirits Bay, a DOC campsite East of Cape Reinga
Day 3 was a biggy.
First off I stopped in at Te Hapua, a very small village a bit further on from Spirits Bay where horses and cows roamed freely and cars had no rego plates.
Catching up with the locals
At Awanui I turned East and headed for the Bay Of Islands and a short distance up the road at Taipa I come across a couple travelling on a very nice 1200GS.
At Paihia I took the Ferry over to Russell
and stopped for some very nice lunch with great views
From Russell the riding got serious. Things were still looking good at Russell however I had been keeping an eye on the weather forecast and knew it wasn’t going to stay that way.
An hour down the road the forecast was proved to be correct and I was riding in the rain with no sign of breaking so I just kept going, and going.Eventually I arrived back in Hamilton in the mid evening, a day early but still happy. Day 3 had taken me effectively from Cape Reinga to Hamilton via the Bay Of Islands ~ 590KM for day 3 and 1100 for the 3 days.
While on holiday at Mount Maunganui I joined up with @brainflex via the Hawkes Bay thread and we met on Pikowai Road.
Pikowai has a variety of scenery with some stunning forest sections.
On top of the viewpoint
Once the rutted stuff starts it’s fun going, though I was having a few issues due to having filled up the 30+ litre Safari tank just before the ride making the front end a bit heavy.
At this point the tank was further forward than the front axle and the suspension fully compressed so I couldn’t ride out of it. Thankfully Brainflex was available to drag the front wheel forward.100 metres from the South end of Pikowai Road we struck a bit of a problem, there’s a been a slip which has washed away a section of the track.
It’s a pretty sizable hole and from the rubbish lying around it was obvious the track has been rebuilt before, there were a number of concrete retainer posts and lumps in the debris.
Using what was lying around we managed to fashion a bridge of sorts and got the bikes across, though it’s not likely to be there past the next rainfall.
After Pikowai Road it was straight onto Porters Road.
This was my first time on Porters Road and I should have done it ages ago, if you like something lumpy and bumpy get down to this and give it a go! I highly recommend it.
I had a few more issues here as well, a lot of Porters Road has a sandy base, and with my E-07 worn down to the center line I struggled for traction in quite a few places. Also I have my DR on the low suspension setting because of my much higher seat and along with the weight of a full 30 litre Safari tank resulted in a few ground clearance issues, at least that’s my excuse anyway.
Beached as bro
A quick stop
Huge thanks to @brainflex for pulling me out quite a few times and showing me around.
I got out on Friday and headed North from Hamilton for a wander wherever the road took me
First up was Ohiniwai Road.
Off Coalfield Road I found a short section of abandoned road.
Ferndale Road was a pleasant surprise
Feist Road was a dead end but had some great views
Finlayson Road had a fresh layer of gravel which made it a bit slippery but fun
Uapoto Road has a big straight that was fun in it’s own right.
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Saturday was the best day of the long weekend for me to get out on the bike so I headed up the Awhiti Peninsula for a wander as I’d never been up there before.
If you look carefully you can see the sky Tower in the centre of the skyline.
At the Manukau Heads I walked up to the Lighthouse
Looking into Manukau Harbour from the lighthouse
The wind obviously only blows in one direction right here
One of the many awesome valley views
Google Earth also showed it might be possible to get beach access from West Coast Road and join up with Kariotahi Beach but it isn’t possible. While you can get onto a beach it doesn’t join up with Kariotahi Beach.
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On Sunday I headed up Coromandel for a bit of a loop, a proper loop not the woosy one road riders do
Looking out over Thames from the carpark of the Thames War Memorial.
At Coromandel Town I stopped at the Mussel Kitchen for a lunch of battered mussels.
From there I followed the main road up to Colville then up to Port Charles.
On the way up someone has made a shoe fence.
Port Charles Road ends at the DOC site at Stoney Bay
A stunning view Looking down into Sandy Bay heading South on Port Charles Road.
From Port Charles Road I carried on down Kennedy Bay Road.
Waikawa Bay, the photo doesn’t do it justice.
Little Bay
This hasn’t moved in a while.
That was all the interesting stuff, from there it was back to Hamilton, 420km all up.
I organised a overnight camp to see in the end of summer, for 2017 Daylight saving in NZ ended on the evening on April 1st and while summer officially finished on March 1st the end of daylight saving is really when it happens.
I had a lazy Saturday morning and eventually left home at about 10am. First stop was the Bikeshed at the Okoroire pub
They even provide visor cleaners
Going around the Rotorua Lakes the front tyre was a bit soft so I pumped some air into it. I’ve pumped up tyres in worse places.
I hadn’t been to Lake Okataina for years so had a wander down there. I couldn’t get close to the lake due to the number of vehicles with boat trailers but the road in was quite nice.
I posted pics of the Farewell to Summer gathering in the thread for the event https://www.adventureridingnz.co.nz/forums/topic/farewell-to-summer-overnighter-camp-april-1st-2017/page/2/#post-17481
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