In the morning Doug picked us up form our lodge, and took us to Takapuna via the Harbour Bridge. While we were crossing the bridge, he told us that the add-ons in both sides of the bridge, that widen it from four to six lanes were made in Japan, and are thus called as "Nippon Clip-on".

We arrived to Holeshot BMW-Triumph, where the guys started to install the pannier racks to our bike. They told us that there weren't any suitable panniers for that bike in the whole NZ, so these were ordered from Germany, and installed to the bike as promised. The bike was a BMW R100GS Paris-Dakar, with 52 000 km in the odometer, although we were promised a 40 000 km ridden bike. Never mind, it seemed to be in good condition. As advantages for the bike, the good mileage promising 35 liter tank, long suspension, and enduro tyres fitted just to our backroad plans. Well the el-cheapo tyres were almost worn off, but they had enough rubber for our needs.

As for my total surprise, I found myself chosen a buy-back deal instead of rental, when the Holeshot guy started to make papers for owner change. In our faxes we had all the time used the word "rental", But couldn't complain, since he told they don't make any rental deals with used bikes, and I had already paid the non-returnable deposit of 1000 $NZ. So they kind of sold the bike to me, and then promised to take it back, me paying only for the loss in the value of the bike, and expenses. Buy back is cheaper than rental, but you don't get any support for your tour. It's a "have a nice trip and good luck with your bike" deal.

He made a traffic insurance for me for six months, since that's the shortest new insurance you can make, as he told me. The insurance would be cancelled, after returning the bike. He calculated the money that he would then return to me, and still my share was a six weeks' fee. In our faxes he told me nothing about the insurance, and that it wasn't included in the agreed price. When I asked, why I still have to pay for six weeks instead of three, he told I haven't got an NZ license, and I pay for that. However, the six months price still didn't change when he "realized" that. On top of all this, he debited all the rent, and the half year insurance from my VISA-card. Apparently the deposit was taken during the same charging period. I wasn't prepared for it, and went way over my credit. Fortunately I had changed enough cash, since our VISAs, being parallel on same account, were non-usable after that.

From Auckland we headed north. We aimed to Kaitaia that is the northest town in the Northland, located just before the Aupouri Peninsula. We had our first break after riding 80 kilometers, when I found the reason for bike's coughing in low revs. The left carburetor was overflowing and spilling gas all over my left boot. Why an earth someone had put the carburetors just on someones boot.

I rode to the gas station nearby. I didn't want to get my hands dirty as a first thing in our trip, so I just looked like a stupid tourist with a problem. It was a mistake. The gas station man opened the floater chamber of the carburetor, and told that the gas surface is high and before I could say nothing, he had already bent the small clip that opens the needle valve. As a result the flooding was over, but also didn't the bike run anymore with the left cylinder. I couldn't blame him. I was the tourist, he tried to be kind. I tried to explain him, that now it runs only with one cylinder, and it was only some dirt in the needle that caused the flooding. We then readjusted the surface, and the bike ran, but the carbs were hopelessly out of sync.

We turned to west heading for Kauri forest. After 40 kilometers the carb was overflowing again. We stopped in Tokatoka tavern, where I called the Holeshot's. They rediredted me to their service, and I got some advice how I should check the gas filters, and clean the fuel lines. The bloody filters are inside the full 35 liter tank, and the tightening clips of the fuel lines just refused to open. This time I opened the floater chamber myself in front of the tavern. It started raining. I just pumped the needle up and down flushing the valve, reassembled the carburetor, and we went on. It seemed to work.

We rode through the Kauri forest. The Kauri, that the Maoris call as the kings of the forest, are the biggest trees in NZ. Some of them are over 1500 years old. The biggest and the most significant ones even have their own Maori names. We saw "Tane Mahuta" the god of the forest, whose trunk had a circumference of 14 meters.

We had read somewhere, that you can take a ferry over the Hokianga Bay that saves about an hour of your riding time. To catch the last ferry from Rawene to Kohukohu, we had to speed up, and hoped they don't have radars or speed checking in these kind of roads. We got there just in the nick of time. We reached Kaitaia just before dark. We found the Kaitaia YHA (Youth Hostel) quite easily, since it was along the main road, and there's only one road through Kaitaia. There was no-one in the reception, but there was vacancy in the YHA. However, before intruding to some of the empty rooms, we checked also the Backpackers', but it was full. So we chose a comfortable room for ourself in the YHA, and decided to figure it out in the morning, when the Reception opens.

The boot smelled like an open bucket full of gasoline. We couldn't sleep with the boot in our room. However we couldn't contaminate the whole YHA, nor put the boot outside to the open air to be stolen or rained in. Hmmm, there was this beautiful pair of brand-new o-ring sealed BMW panniers. We emptied the other pannier, put the boot in, and bingo. No smell anymore.