Dave and Micheal's North Island Motorbike Blat

My mate Dave Warren and I spent nine days blatting around the North Island of New Zealand on our motorbikes.

We started the journey by riding from Auckland to Taranaki for the Patua Music Festival. Many thanks to all, especially Vanessa, for all your generous hospitality towards us payload limited bikers.

  The day after the festival we took the Forgotten World Highway, with stops in Whangamomana, Tahora, Raetihi, Whanganui and finishing up at Dave's mum's place in Palmerston North. Now I see how Dave got to be the way he is. :-). We also got to spend some time with Dave's sister.

 

Next day we are headed north up the east coast, via the wind farm, Peter and Mary's place, Napier and ending up in a cabin in Gisborn for the night.

From Gisborn we rode around East Cape. White Island was putting on a show for us with it's eruptions. Stopped in at the Whakatane Pub for lunch, then on to stay with Geoff Ellett in Tauranga.

From Tauranga we rode all the way to Northland, meeting my mate Larry along the way with all three of us riding to Larry and Karon's place for the night.

Next day Larry acted as tour guide, showing us some of the beautiful rides up to Kaitaia. From there, Dave and I rode up to Cape Reinga, then along the northeast shore of New Zealand back to Larry and Karon's, where we took Larry out for a nice Italian meal. We also finished off the bottle of amazing Ardbeg that had been a good companion on the journey.

Last day. We said goodbye to Larry and Karon, took the ferry from Opua to Russel and rode down the east coast of the North Island back to home, via Tutakaka. Final stop before parting ways was at the Puhoi Pub to toast the completion of a marvelous week of great riding and companionship. Thanks Dave!!!

All the photos here: https://picasaweb.google.com/108481211284683809830/DaveAndMichealNorthIslandBlat