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Where is it possible to motorcycle on an island that has
volcanoes, glaciers, geysers, snow covered mountains, rain,
floods, and sheep too numerous to count? ICELAND, NO,
THAT WAS ANOTHER STORY AND TRIP.
It is true that both have some similarities other than
being islands. Driving along the coasts on both islands
the rider finds that all roads are not all paved.
In Iceland, of the 800 miles of the Ring Road,
probably only approximately 400
miles were paved. On this island much more of the
road surface is paved. Still not all of it is and
especially not along the coast road.
Neither island has any large mammals except those which were
imported either on purpose or accidentally. Those seen are
mainly dogs, cats, sheep, rats, possums and humans.
However, Iceland is relatively new, starting as a volcano while
New Zealand is very old, being originally part of Africa,
but slowly it drifted away.
So,unlike Iceland. it not only has reptiles but amphibians,
which are truly unique. As it turns out, the human natives who
arrived about 900 years ago killed off the large flightless
birds. Later, as the white population increased, much of
the habitat necessary for the unusual, native species was destroyed
thereby making it difficult to see these rarities.
We have three criteria for motorcycling in foreign
countries. We want to go where there are no paved roads, no
tourists, and no English speaking people. It is not that we
do not like the Japanese, we do. An affection for tour buses and crowds
is lacking in our makeup. So, the combination of the two works to
the detriment of our goals for foeign travel. Unpaved roads often
means that one can experience the real country and people with their
typical customs and traditions.
Most of the people in New Zealand speak English as their native
language as nearly all of the remaining original natives live in the
warmer north island. So, we thought the last of our
travelling criterion could not be met. However, the English
spoken here is somewhat difficult to understand and about one-third
of it was not comprehensible. In fact, we understood English
speaking Germans better than the locals. We met many
Germans or German speaking Swiss during the trip but on
bicycles, not buses.
We actually did not see many motorcyclists. Other than the
obvious local who was taking his 100 cc bike to the market,
we only saw two other motorcyclists who were touring and only
a glimpse since they were headed the other way. They were
on the right side of the road while we were on the left so
communication was a simple wave.
Driving on the left side of the road was awkward at first
until the pillion rider analyzed the situation. "Ride as
fast as you can on the center line and veer to the right or
left, as the case may be, upon meeting on-coming traffic or
overtaking," were the instructions. After that we had few
problems.
This "center line" technique did not work however in two
situations: where there were one lane bridges, a frequent
situation, and where vehicles and/or trains shared the same
single lane bridge.
This at least made for some interesting
video. Trains and vehicles sometimes even share the same
traffic circle. For those who have motorcycled in foreign
counties the question always is "who has the right of way,
traffic already on the circle or traffic coming onto the
circle? Or the train?" We gave way at all times.
We prefer to go off the paved road, have fun and then hookup with
another main road so as not to back track. Along the coast
road this was not always possible but in the center of the
island it was. Without meeting other motorcyclists it was
difficult to obtain good information about the more
adventurous routes. Several months before, when the
trip was in the planning stage, we did subscribe to an island
motorcycle magazine which covers dual sporting. It so
happened that the two longest roads recommended had "Road
Closed" signs when we arrived.
There had been extreme flooding
three or four days earlier because of the heavy rains.
Momentarily, we asked "what does 'Road Closed' mean"?
Closed to everyone? Or, just heavy trucks? These roads
can't be closed to hikers, or cyclist? If not, why then to
motorcycles? And why were they closed? Maybe, just
maybe, they are now meant to be open but, the person sent out to remove
the sign forgot this one or drove his flat bed pick-up into the flood?
More likely, though, it's high holiday season and they just
hadn't managed to get out there!
We had to decide if we wanted to venture onto these
roads. Here again, the pillion rider analyzed the
situation and said "Probably, with the difficulty we are
having understanding the English speakers, 'Closed road' only
applies to non-Americans and surely not to
motorcyclists. After all the sign that said, 'Greasy Road'
was misleading as the road wasn't greasy and there weren't
any penguins at the penguin crossing sign."
With this logical argument
our rented BMW GS surged forward, the decision having been made for us.
These so-called dual sporting roads could have been traveled
by anyone on a street bike with moderate skills. Flooding
had destroyed bridges; causing wash-outs, which in turn created
killer whoop-de-doos and large land slides. These did obscure the
road in more than one place. All of these "forced" the GS
to ford rivers, jump hurdles, and go over land
slides that were small mountains of loose skree. Yes,
these roads were closed but, not to two Americans on a
motorcycle.
The most exciting situations were where bridges no
longer existed. The climate is a dry-drought area where the
soil could soak up the heavy rains. After the floods receeded,
the water levels in the hills went down quickly making the rivers low
enough to get a heavy BMW through. At one crossing we were simply
able to ride down the embankment, into the river and up the other
bank. At another, an old prospector with friends indicated where to ford.
They did not show us their gold which they were panning for in the river
as we crossed.
Other than that there are many miles of simple, gravel roads and
jeep trails where we seldom saw anyone except for ranchers or
farmers. After all, the population of the entire nation is less than 3 million
in an area about the same size as California. And this south
island did remind us of California in many ways. The climate
changed as we traveled along its length and from the coast
into the mountains. A slight difference between the two that
we noted is that there is no National Rifle Association. We asked, "Why" ?
We were told, "Here men sleep with their women, not their guns, so we
don't need the NRA." As in California, even with a much
smaller population, there were many stores in which to
purchase anything wanted, unlike Iceland. Traveling
on this island was in fact the easiest trip we have made in
many, many years.
New Zealand is a pleasant, easy place to motorcycle and very scenic,
but we suggest that it be seen before Norway and the Foroe
Islands. Iceland should be toured after New Zealand too as it has the
most amazing scenery.
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FOR FURTHER ADVENTURERS ON NEW ZEALAND BY THIS COUPLE GO TO
NEW ZEALAND NORTH ISLAND
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BY GAIL AND ERIC HAWS FOR INTERNATIIONAL MOTORCYCLE ADVENTURERS
@ http://www.rio.com/~tynda
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12 Dec 96