EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT RIDING IN NZ…
As with any new location we arrived with our own vague preconceptions of what would face us. Here is what we actually learned from this trip… There are far more very long straight roads then we ever imagined but, as in California, they tend to be worth it once you get to the end. Road conditions are generally very good but the surface is often a coarse gravel tar seal making it difficult to distinguish between loose and fixed gravel surfaces. The riding is generally easy and Dolomites-style hairpin sections don’t really exist. The numerous rivers are crossed by long, single-lane bridges which operate on a first-come-first-served basis. Some of the longer ones have passing points in the middle. Open roads generally have a 100km/ hour speed limit. Traffic and police presence are both light.
We were there in late November and it was very windy with hazardous cross gusts. The west coast is rainforest and unsurprisingly tends to be quite wet. Having said that it is a great ride even in the rain. We were warned to beware of Kia birds who apparently like to peck away seat upholstery on parked bikes. We rented machines from Kiwi Motorcycles in Leithfield (www. citymotorcyclerentals.com) and a Yamaha Tracer 900 was £95/day. We took all our own riding gear but they do have jackets, trousers, helmets etc for hire. Navigation on the South Island is pretty simple as there aren’t many roads once you get out of the towns. We, as always, used Motomappers excellent Scenic app (scenicapp. com) on our smartphones and planned routes in advance.
Kiwi Rentals were quite happy to let us mount whatever we wanted to the bikes.