Hobbits And Bobbits...NZ'12-The North

glitch

Mapping the next ride...
Staff member
A couple more shots of the day from TimC

The first few are from that sweet-as-pie Klondyke Rd., on the way to Port Waikato

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Hans somewhere south of Raglan


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glitch

Mapping the next ride...
Staff member
Holy mackerel, that Blue Chook Inn and those 2 hosts were something else :bs:clap::clap:...make SURE you don’t miss the place when somewhere in the area, I know I’ll be making a quite extensive detour just for a return visit, Yessir!


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Tacking south once more a few kilometers past the Oparau Roadhouse,

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Kawhia Harbour


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...the course is set to find the Waikawau Tunnel, a rare leftover of the old days, when farmers tried to find a way to get their sheep and cattle onto barges for transport.

Being as nifty as what Kiwis are, they found an easy way to the coast...where a steep mountain range blocked access to the beach. So they took a shovel...a big one!!

But first Hans tries a bit of tunneling of his own :whistle:, sticking the “tanker-DR” (the only one with an aftermarket tank) into a ditch in a sharp downhill-lefthander of the Taharoa Rd.. Getting away lucky, it’s off for a little break at Marokopa, where a wide, shallow river cuts through the black sands of the beach and into the North Taranaki Bight.

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glitch

Mapping the next ride...
Staff member
Poking around the backblocks a little, we finally stumble onto the mysterious tunnel...and what a weird thing this is!!:glu

The road goes all tight and squirrely before it ends in a small carpark, with a hole-in-the-wall showing a little daylight in the distance....and a 20kmh sign nailed to a post. Ride through? Oh yeah!!

Oh shit!! Whadda we do now?

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The exit is a 20ft concrete and timber ramp affair, 4ft wide, onto the soft-as-custard black sand.
No way to turn the bikes around in the tunnel...and they’ll sink like the Titanic in this black fluffy stuff down there....:???:

I give it a go and bog the XT after 10 meters...Bernard and the much lighter 250 are a little better off, but not by much.

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Manhandling the whole fleet backwards through the dark tunnel becomes a merry and tumultuous affair...and that’s after the XTs have been pushed and pulled back onto the ramp on the beach-side of the tunnel.

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glitch

Mapping the next ride...
Staff member
Leaving the place of mayhem


Bernard

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Tim/ Sir Francis

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The last bit to the State Hwy3 is sealed, but certainly not exactly boring


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Rocky islands in the small bay at Mokau


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Only a short stretch of Hwy3, then it’s inland again on narrow single-laners into the heart of the Taranaki area while Hans keeps rolling down the coast towards New Plymouth, looking for someone with a welder for that gearlever and a bike-shop with a new clutch lever... the old one snapped at the pivot, bugga!!

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CamStrom

Tear along dotted line!
Great installment. Keep em coming. Great bedtime reading.
Drift off to sleep with some of those images in my head! Except maybe stuck in the custard sand!

Cam
 

asphalt

Tassie...where tyres are flat and nights are long
But first Hans tries a bit of tunneling of his own :whistle:, sticking the “tanker-DR” (the only one with an aftermarket tank) into a ditch in a sharp downhill-lefthander of the Taharoa Rd.. Getting away lucky, it’s off for a little break at Marokopa, where a wide, shallow river cuts through the black sands of the beach and into the North Taranaki Bight.

I rather tries to do excavation works along the road.:poo:
Fortunately, on the way to N. Plymouth there was a gas station with motor vehicle workshop.
The gear lever was back welded in 5 minutes perfectly.
The clutch lever at the Suzuki dealer in N. Plymouth was not in stock,
so the friendly mechanic merchant mounted ado the lever of a new bike.
Duration of the repair work, 15 minutes!!

Thanks to the workshop in Urenui
and thanks also to the Suzuki dealer in New Plymouth!:clap:
 
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nev

Super Térrarist
Manhandling the whole fleet backwards through the dark tunnel becomes a merry and tumultuous affair...and that’s after the XTs have been pushed and pulled back onto the ramp on the beach-side of the tunnel.

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that tunnel wouldn't be called the Earnslaw by any chance???
 

carver.

Getting the hang of it
Poking around the backblocks a little, we finally stumble onto the mysterious tunnel...and what a weird thing this is!!:glu
The road goes all tight and squirrely before it ends in a small carpark, with a hole-in-the-wall showing a little daylight in the distance....and a 20kmh sign nailed to a post. Ride through? Oh yeah!!

Oh shit!! Whadda we do now?

The exit is a 20ft concrete and timber ramp affair, 4ft wide, onto the soft-as-custard black sand.
No way to turn the bikes around in the tunnel...and they’ll sink like the Titanic in this black fluffy stuff down there....:???:

I give it a go and bog the XT after 10 meters...Bernard and the much lighter 250 are a little better off, but not by much.

Manhandling the whole fleet backwards through the dark tunnel becomes a merry and tumultuous affair...and that’s after the XTs have been pushed and pulled back onto the ramp on the beach-side of the tunnel.

i call that 'a cats whiskers realisation'.

learnt my lesson on a rocky ridge high up in the alps.
was skirting down the mountain side on a really challenging track.
having an absolute blast until i could see ahead the track was impassable, too rocky, too narrow.

only a few milliseconds later i had an oh shit moment,
when i realised that between my current position and the impasse ahead, there was nowhere to turn around.
kind of a difficult situation when you have a 200+ kg bike, pointing downhill, you are alone,
and (most) bikes don't have a reverse gear.

had to use some cunning to get out of that nook on my own.

why do i call it 'a cats whiskers realisation'.
there is a notion that cats won't proceed through a hole narrower than their whiskers,
'cause they know they could get stuck.

lesson learnt, from now on, i won't proceed downhill
unless i know i can reach an turn around area at least as wide as the length of the bike i am riding.
 
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