There and back
I was an early adopter of the Highway 16 route north out of Auckland.
Years before I moved out west, I used what effectively is an alternative to the tight, twisty, and always heavily trafficked Highway 1 from the North Shore to Warkworth and Wellsford.
And so it was that early (ish) one fine spring Saturday morning, I headed west through Kumeu, Huapai and Helensville before skirting the mighty Kaipara Harbour (New Zealand’s largest inner waterway) to Tauhoa then east to hook up again with Highway 1 at Wellsford.
In theory I should then have simply stayed on Highway 1 to Whangarei and on up past Hikurangi and Hukerenui to Kawakawa then Pahia ... but I hadn’t counted on the volume of traffic that now clogs most of Northland’s main roads.
By just south of Whangarei in fact, I was starting to regret my decision to say in bed that extra hour. Or at least I was until I remembered an earlier Suzukibased mission.
Lapping it up The year was ... actually, let’s not go there ... and the then Editor of Kiwi Rider motorcycle magazine, Jonathan Bentman, offered me the opportunity to join him on what he termed ‘a lap of Northland’ as he compared and contrasted a Suzuki Hayabusa hyperbike and Kawasaki’s thennew competitor the ZX-12R.
Both 300km/h-capable large capacity sports bikes, needless to say, would have been wasted being ‘tested’ on State Highway 1, so Jonathan put together a route through what he termed ‘the back way’ to the Bay of Islands (via Maungatapere and Kaikohe) for lunch then a return home via the Kohukohu to Rawene car (and bike!) ferry and on to the west coast at Omapere and a mix of twisty hill and flat river plain roads to Dargaville, Matakohe and Maungaturoto till we were pretty much back home again.
OK, even with the Sport mode pretty much permanently engaged, a Suzuki Vitara turbo is never going to match a Hayabusa. But having considered the alternative – being stuck in the passive/aggressive hell that is Highway 1 these days – the minute I saw a signpost south of Whangarei pointing to Maungatapere, my mind was made up. I swung left and enjoyed a magical, mystery tour of what has to be one of New Zealand’s best driving roads.
As empty – I probably saw 12 vehicles in the 70-odd kms between the crossroads at Maungatapere (which, sadly, seems to have lost its ‘world famous in NZ’ café) and Kaikohe – as the main drag was, no doubt likely packed to the gunnels with cars, trucks and camper vans, the road (SH15) rolls through picture perfect Kiwi dairy and sheep farms before dropping down into a valley, whose sides increasingly steepen until you feel like you are in the middle of a Peter Jackson movie set.
At the northern end, you drop down to river bed level through a gorge before you eventually burst out the other side on what you could call the Kaikohe city limits!
At which point, boy did I need
the Z steak and cheese pie/flat white combo I was offered when I stopped to refuel my by now well bug-splattered Vitara Turbo.
Dazed & confused! Next time I do the trip I will head due east to Paihia, but this time I got myself well confused, heading north to Kerikeri. I blame the small screen on my Samsung smartphone, but the result was pretty much a wasted hour, meaning that I eventually arrived at the Mountain Bike Park closer to 1.00pm than the 11.00am I had planned.
Never mind, I will be able to make up that little loss by taking a more direct route back to Auckland…. NOT!
Realising I was not only going to be late but BLOODY LATE, I phoned my wife Delia, explained that I was having a ball and not to worry about dinner for me that night and after my ride at the Waitangi MTB Park I consulted Google Maps again and pointed the Vitara west, the idea to complete the Hayabusa/zx12r ‘Northland loop.’
The road back through Kaikohe was moderately busy, but the closer I got to the mighty Hokianga the less traffic there was, prompting me to take what I thought would be a ‘brief detour’ to Rawene for fish and chips.
As usual my idea of a brief detour added (another!) round hour to the trip and light was fading as I eased into Opononi and on through Omapere.
Tane Mahuta From there my memory told me that in ‘next to no time’ I would be stopping to pay a respectful tribute to our greatest Kauri tree, Tane Mahuta, then rolling down the other side of the wonderful Waipoua Forest road and low-flying the next bit of SH12 through Kahui and Mamarunui to the drift stronghold (courtesy 4x NZ Drift King Gaz Whiter) that is Dargaville.
And so it was, the Vitara’s willing little turbo powerplant, accurate and communicative steering, and exceptionally well-damped long travel suspension, lapping up the 24kms (that’s what the sign said) of tight, twisty road on the way into the Waipoua Forest then revelling in the similar distance on the way back down again.
By this stage I don’t mind admitting I was tired, however I have always loved the concept of long, marathon-type missions on two or four wheels so, bar stopping for (another, this time Mobil) pie and coffee combo at Wellsford, I pinned my ears back and combatted fatigue by concentrating on the road.
Back around Tauhoa and on down through Glorit (back on SH16) it was well dark, but the Vitara’s headlights proved so good the only problem I had was keeping far enough back from the odd car also on the road at this late stage, so as not to light up the interior like a police helicopter’s searchlight!
And then I was in my driveway at home, taking a little longer to get out of the Vitara than I did when I stopped for the first time that day.
“How was your day?" my wife asked after wandering out to see what I was up to (taking my bike off the Whispbar roof rack).
“Yeah, good,” I said. “A bit up and down ... but I had a ball.”