Rosco and Raewyn put on a huge breakfast for us and it was not long before we set off for the short 30 k run out to Cape Reinga. The road now is fully sealed and when I cycled it last year, I said to myself this would be a great road on a bike, and it was, especially as there no other traffic about.
We were joined at the Cape by Jim and Tim Denham who had ridden up from Auckland that morning, very early start, a Peter Rogers from Waihi on his X Challenge, and last but not least, Alex Allan sauntered in (this was to a trademark of Alex for the duration of the trip).
As the photo above shows, we had a stunning day to start our adventure.
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| The R80 at Cape Reinga |
Once everyone was assembled we got Mark Taylor to take his R80 Gs down to the lighthouse as we wanted to feature his bike at the start, as this was both the start of our adventure and the first GS model from BMW.
All the riders slowly made their way down to the Lighthouse for our group photo.
This was to be the core group of riders who would complete the journey down to Bluff. Missing from the photo is Justin Ryan (who was taking the photo) and Garry Williams (who was minding the bikes).
We were then joined by two Ngati Kuri elders who would set us off with a traditional Maori blessing.
Following the blessing we jumped on the bikes and headed South, for the first time in four days. We stopped at the turn off to Te Paki and Garry gave us a short lesson on some basic off road riding skills, like how to pick up your bike safely, standing on pegs, riding on sand etc. Then it was onto 90 Mile Beach for our first off road section, and what a way to start.
By some sheer good luck, rather than planning, we picked the perfect time to hit the beach with the the tide well out and the sand hard and fast. This was the first time I had ridden on a beach so was a bit nervous about how it would turn out but I needn't have worried as it was just magic.
Quick photo once we had come through Te Paki stream.
Waiting for the off....
David Caesar points the way.
Does it get any better than this, yes as it turned out as this was only day 1.
Riding along Te Paki stream to 90 Mile Beach.
Kelly shows her artistic side or maybe she is just worried that Ian will get them lost.
Exiting 90 Mile Beach at Waipapakauri Ramp.
It was here that Mark Taylor suffered his fall, breaking his collar bone in the process. Luckily we had Peter Zink on hand to tend to the injury and Rosco returned with a friend to take Mark back to his place. Mark flew home to Christchurch two days later.
Once we exited the beach, we had a quick lunch stop and washed our bikes. Then it was off to Ahipara via a good shingle road and head South to catch the ferry at Kohukoho. Unfortunately, Garry and one other rider just missed the ferry so had to wait for its return so David Caesar took over the role of leading to Waitangi (as I had never been there before). We stopped briefly at a waterfall just before Waitangi...
Waitangi is the site where the Maori signed the Treaty of Waitangi so holds a lot of history for New Zealanders. Following a short stop at the Treaty House it was a quick ride to the ferry at Opua. It was here that David realised he had left his cellphone in the toilets at Waitangi so sprinted back to recover it only to find they had closed (he did recover it safely the next day).
We disembarked the ferry at Okiato and it was short run into Russell and our first night stop at the Russell Top 10 Holiday Park who donated $100 to the Rescue Helicopter Service, thanks for that.
We had a wonderful relaxing night in Russell with a beautiful sunset over the bay. Total distance traveled was 293 km.
