Deane & Jack's Motorcycle Trip in
Australia and New Zealand
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Deane & Jack's Motorcycle Trip in Australia and New Zealand |
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March 13 - Whitianga to Auckland, New Zealand 311 Miles |
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The day started out with broken clouds and sun, with the promise of a riding day without rain. That didn't last long, though, with a heavy shower just as we were loading up. The rest of the day gave us rain off and on, some light , some very heavy. We probably had wet roads about 75 percent of the way, light rain about 40 percent, and heavy rain about 10 percent of the way. However, that didn't keep us from having a fun and scenic ride. We continued down the Coromandel Peninsula, with variations in seaside riding and mountain riding. The views from the mountains directly above the sea were spectacular at times. Unfortunately, Deane's camera got broken the first day of riding, so the photos here are from Jack's camera.
The riding temperatures were cool, in the low 50's, but reasonably comfortable, with our riding suits and rain gear. Now for the "talking and singing toilet". We stopped to take a picture in a town with a viewing area of a huge rock sticking up from the sea. While there, we need to make a toilet stop, and went to what seemed to be new outside toilets there. They had little flashing red or green lights to indicate occupied or vacant, and then when one goes inside, a voice says "push the button to lock the door", followed with music. Then one hopes the unlock button works, because there is no escape route.
As we left the seashore to ride back across the peninsula to Auckland, we had great riding, through relatively large farms, mostly dairy farms, with beautiful green pastures and rolling hills giving fun elevation changes. Even in the rain, this was beautiful. In the afternoon, Jack's motorcycle developed a worrisome sound in the drive train. We still had about 100 miles to get back to the rental place, so we hoped it would make 100 miles, then 90 miles, then 80, then 70 and so on. In the end, it made it, but with a grinding sound getting worse and worse. Jack had noticed that the chain was really loose when we picked the bike up from the rental place, and had the rental guy adjust it, but it seems the chain and maybe a tooth on the sprocket were grinding away at one another. Thank goodness it lasted long enough that we didn't have a breakdown in the rain.
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