The weather cleared up during the morning and after getting our washed clothes dried and a powerful breakfast (we could nearly not stop eating Franziska’s delicious homemade “German bread” –yummy!!!) we decided to continue having in mind that not many days are left. Again we met lovely people and we had to say once more good bye.

We went off taking the little coastline roads direction Raglan and were enjoying the narrow winding roads, partially gravel. Exploring wonderful beaches, a hidden beach tunnel and driving through rainforest and up and down the bluff hills…

On the way to Katikati were we wanted to catch up once more with our Kiwi-friends (Josie, Chris and Marty) we had a stop in Hamilton to get new tires and a new brake pads. We were really looking forward to see once more our friends in Katikati – and we spend wonderful days with them!!! As well we had the chance to (get) maintain our motorbike for the next destination in Marty’s shed. With his great experience and having all tools available Sascha (actually Marty was doing it) could fix everything within one day and I could enjoy a lovely day with Josie and some friends of her who she invited for brunch ;-) Finally we fixed as well the transport of the bike and booking our flights for the new destination: Bangkok! Due day to pass over the bike: January 18^th, date of our flights: January 20^th. No way back anymore…

We decided to join Chris, Marty, Beate and Tim for the first part of their trip as they planned going direction Napir where our old friend Steve is living and as well some nice roads we had not done yet were waiting for us… After a nice riding day together we end up on a camp site in Clive, next to Napir, where our friends knew the owner, Jim. As we could not reach Steve in Napir, Jim offered us to stay in his little caravan – of course for free, as we are on a “special mission”, he said ;-)  We moved in, had a real interesting walk through his garage which is full of old bikes, cars, things from here and there, heard many interesting stories and spend a lovely evening with our friends.

Next morning we had to say good bye, we met up finally with Steve to say good bye to him and hit off from there for our last three days before we will arrive to Auckland. A fascinating road of about 100km gravel road through the rainforest in the mountains of the North Island was waiting for us Tuhoi Country Road which is mainly Maui land. We spend the night up there at the lake, enjoying our self in this beautiful landscape and realizing that we are getting slowly to the end of this part of our journey…

The last night with our bike we wanted to stay somewhere at the seaside so went up quite close to Auckland and landed in Orere Point in a nature reserve were we could listen to the waves…

Yesterday, January 17^th late morning we arrived in Auckland in the house of our friend Darren and his parents Gabe and Bob which seems to us a little bit like our home here in NZ. We could manage to get sorted, washed and organized our things during the day and had a wonderful “tea”(“tea” means having  lunch or dinner and Bob was cooking once more his delicious mussel cakes – so yummy) in the evening with the whole family.

Today early morning we left to the Freight Forwarder with our bike to fix in our crate (THANKS! to Dazz who stored and brought already the crate over to them) and get done the Carnet and all the other paperwork with them. WOW! Our Motorbike is gone again! Hopefully we will see it again in a good condition coming Monday or Tuesday in BANGKOK!!!

After having done that it was time for a refreshing jump in the pool together with Dazz… the day after tomorrow in the evening we will arrive in Bangkok. Some things still need to be prepared and honestly we cannot really imagine yet arriving there; big and loud, people everywhere, hot and humid – but we are really excited at the same time and looking forward our new destinations: Thailand, Laos, Cambodia…

SUMMARY of Aotearoa – The Land of the Big White Cloud

How to summarize what we experienced here after being around 12091,1 km with our motorbike? Not easy as it has so many faces, fascinating places and lovely people!? For sure the time was running much too fast and we could easily start up from the beginning again – still so much to see, so much to explore, hundreds of places worse to go again and so many people we would love to see again!!! Where ever we went the people were always open minded, friendly, helpful and interested; we found really good friends and we are sure we will see them again – when and where ever. It is really a place like paradise: you find all kind of beaches, rainforest, mountains… and in some places are these beasts around, called Sandflies,  just because to bring you back to earth otherwise it would be too beautiful we think ;-)

We would love to stay for longer, but we are on a journey for the moment and we are looking forward as well to our new destination, Thailand Laos Cambodia… pretty sure we will come back here one day!

January 10^th

We passed the 10.000km mark:

The next day finally we saw a Vincent Black Shadow, Dean had one in his Garage. Great bike!  When we got ready to leave Lynnie gave us the key to their batch, a beach house in Koitiata, close to Wanganui. We spend the evening walking along the black sand beach full of drift wood, cooking and relaxing.

In the late morning we left for the Wanganui River Valley Road, we enjoyed the ride even though it was not much gravel road left and we past Athens and Jerusalem. The plan was to go down the “Forgotten World Highway”, a small partially gravel road in-between green hills and rain forest and staying somewhere in the nature for the night. Unfortunately it started to rain… slowly… more and more. So we continued to find any dry place, either a camp site or a pup with rooms. But we were on the “Forgotten World Highway” and nothing was around. In the end we found a little camp ground and they had a dry caravan available where we moved in for the night.

When we woke up it was still raining… but we continued driving direction Stratford, Mt Taranaki. The rain became harder the winds turned to storm, so we spend the next night in a hostel – a former old nursery school building where we were the only guests… honestly, it was a bit spooky.

Luckily the weather cleared up next day, and we went off to see Mt Taranaki.  Covered in clouds we could not really see the top but we spend a lovely day riding around it, stopping at several surf beaches and going to the west cape lighthouse. Arriving in New Plymouth we could stay in the house of Franziska and Jens with their 4 kids, who moved three years ago to NZ and offered us immediately to stay for the night. We spend a great evening talking at the fireplace… Unfortunately today morning it started heavy rains again. Thankful to have a dry place we are sitting now here, catching up, sewing our sleeping bags, looking for new tires, playing around with little 2.5 year old Elena and hoping the weather will get better a bit at least… we are not sure if we will continue today or staying in this “warm” house of Franziska and Jens for one more night.