3/07 – Ups, Downs, And Finally On My Way! – Mon 03 – Fri 07 Feb 2025

Monday 03 Feb 2025

Up early for my usual travelling breakfast of oats, but this time with the addition of a my “Eet-Sum-Mor”; I limited myself to two! 😁

The rest of the day was spent on my dive and a visit to Cathedral Cove, a “must-see” attraction on the peninsula. The dive was fun, but visibility wasn’t that  and the fish and plant life wasn’t that colourful. I did, however, see an eel (small) a crayfish, and a crab or six. It was a good way to spend the day.

In keeping with the marine theme, dinner was fish and chips followed by an early night to prepare for the morrow.

Tue 04 Feb 2026

The only thing memorable about Tue was the ride. The bike was running beautifully, and the road was fantastic. It would mostly through wooded hills, interspersed with some flat farmland. In contract to what I had noted in the US, the woods looked mostly natural; the trees were varied and of substantial size. Even on the farmland, there were large trees left standing.

Having driven past it on the first attempt, I found the Blue Lake Top 10 campsite. It was in an odd location, across quite a busy road from a narrow strip of beach. I say odd because these Top 10 places are called “family-friendly”, and I can’t quite imagine young, or even not-so-young, kids running from the campsite to the beach for a cooling dip.

On that note, the weather was glorious, fully sunny and 25ºC; perfect – to the extent that when shown my camp pitch, I asked for a more shaded spot!

I was cooking for myself tonight – frozen Greek-style cottage pie, even though it was made with lamb. (My understanding is cottage pie is made with beef, and shepherd’s pie is made with lamb). In any case, in spite of the fact that I melted the plastic container as I tried to brown the potatoes under a grill, it was very tasty,

This was much to the amusement of my dining companions; a couple of Swedish ladies, from somewhere unpronounceable in Southern Sweden, and an Australian couple from Ipswich. One of the ladies had been a biker for many years, before an unbalanced mind 😁 meant she couldn’t ride any longer. She assured us that she was now normal again better.

 The conversation ranged far and wide and the time passed quickly. Soon it was bedtime, and I was proud of myself for having consumed less than half of the bottle of wine I had bought. I thought I would take it with me in the morning, but I ended up giving it to the Swedes. In return, well not really in return, I got an invite to visit Sweden. I just might do that when my feet get itchy; I’ve always had an idea to ride to the Artic Circle.

Weds 05 Feb 2025

It rained on Tues night, so packing up was a little slow – well slower than usual. The bike wasn’t in such good health today, missing on one cylinder again. It’s very frustrating this intermittent fault. I tried running the carbs to empty, on the premise that No 4 may have flooded again, to no avail. I checked the plugs and No 4 was again wet and black. Somewhere along the way I thought I should just change all 4 plugs and see what happens, then, after a short stop to see an unimpressive waterfall (Haku Falls) outside Taupo, the problem cleared.  The fall is just a torrent of water running through a narrow gap in the rocks; it was probably fuller after last night’s rain, but still hardly worth the stop. I may have got a new subscriber though, a fellow visitor from Colorado who came to chat about the bike, so maybe worth it.

Well, the poor health progressed as the day went on. Based on one plug being black and wet, I changed all four. This did nothing; in fact, it made things worse! The bike stopped and wouldn’t start again. 

I checked plugs and plug caps; all good. There was no spark on No 1 and a weak spark on No 4 so I checked coil resistance; it was good. A bad connection under the tank was my next thought. This required removing seat and tank, which I didn’t want to do at the roadside, so I called my insurer for assistance.

The bike was removed to Huka Honda, conveniently located just two kilometers from where I was. Originally, they said they would insist on doing the work, but when I got there, agreed that I could do it outside the workshop.

I got started and on removing the tank I discovered it was nearly empty, even though I had only covered 130 kms since the last fill-up. I replaced the tank, switched to reserve, and the bike responded well and a short test ride around the car park seemed to suggest all was well.

It was now too late to go to my intended destination, so I booked a BnB, packed up and headed to the nearest petrol station to fill up. After leaving here, the problem resurfaced. I rode to the BnB with the bike struggling all the way. 

Shopping for dinner, dinner and a good night’s sleep was the order of the day. My hope was that tomorrow I can finally sort it, or at least concretely identify the problem. This may not be helped by the fact that tomorrow is, naturally enough, a public holiday!

Thurs 06 Feb 2025

Well, I got up this morning all set to get stuck into the bike, having asked the BnB owner if I cold stay another night. Just before starting I checked my messages only to find one telling me there was no vacancy for that night. This typified the impression I had of this BnB host. They wanted no contact, or as little contact as possible, with guests; everything was done by wrote and by the app. All they had to do was open a door and tell me! 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, I managed to find another BnB only 8 kms away, and contacted the host to ask if I could come early – read immediately – so I could work on my bike. Paul, my host,   responded that this was no problem, although the bed wouldn’t be made up till later.

I spent the day going through various systems trying to isolate my problem. Paul contacted some a friend who contacted a friend who had some Hondas – a CBX as it turned out. We had a chat and I was relieved to hear that our thoughts were similar; I was on the right track! He also advised that I switch from 91 octane to 95; “91 is rubbish”, he said.

After another couple of hours I discovered a fault with a small needle jet that controlled the flow of fuel into the carburetor. This could well be the cause of my problems.

I dumped all the fuel I had bought yesterday and replaced the offending part with a spare I happened to have. The engine ran smoothly so I took it for a ride and all seemed well. I filled the tank and headed back home to pack up and make dinner.

Tomorrow is another day!

Fri 07 Feb 2025

Well today would be the big test! I had 420 or so kilometres to ride today in order to “catch up” on my schedule. Really that meant I had a hotel and a ferry booking that required me to be in Wellington by this evening.

It was chilly at 0730 as I bade farewell to Paul, still in his dressing gown. The road was quite empty, many people “font le pont”. The road wound uphill and it was soon getting chilly. The main, or Desert, road south was closed, and the detour involved a ride up, rising to some 800m, and through the National Park. 

At the other end, and by now quite cold, I arrived at Waiouru and the National Army Museum. This was my coffee stop and was most welcome; the coffee and scone certainly filled a hole. The visit to the museum was interesting, nothing new, but interesting, nonetheless. Then it was on southwards towards Wellington.

This part of the ride initially was fun, but then I arrived at the dual carriage expressway; gone were the pleasant single lane windy main roads to be replaced by the whizz of city bound traffic all in a hurry to get somewhere.

It was also very windy, apparently is quite characteristic of Wellington, with the resultant buffeting making the ride quite uncomfortable. I surprised myself by arriving in Wellington in good time and took a tour of the city to reach my hotel – a GPS tour, I didn’t get lost.

Booked in, got myself sorted and then out for a early dinner in the trendy Cuba Street. This is a somewhat down-at-heel street in Wellington lined by trendy bistro type places, second-hand and ethnic clothes shops and the like – a tourist must-see, I suppose. 

The Italian restaurant I chose was recommended by a waiter in another Italian restaurant that served only Italian “sharing platters”; with no-one to share with, I felt I’d do better elsewhere. Scopa was opposite it’s sister establishment 1154, and it is the first Italian restaurant I have ever been in that didn’t have pasta on the menu! Still, the pollo alla vodka was tasty, so I won’t complain.

I had been assured that my bags would be safe on the bike overnight, in the hotel carpark, but once in bed, I heard two police sirens within five minutes and I decided that a little extra effort was worth it, to prevent the unlikely loss of some of my gear; I remembered the near loss of my tent in San Francisco.  So out of bed I got, down the stairs I went and brought my bags inside. 🤷‍♂️