The Christmas Eve
In the morning I noticed, that my front tyre was flat. That was also a good explanation for the slippery front end the day before. We rode very carefully to the nearest service station, and since the air seemed to stay in we kept riding on.

Our next target was the Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland. A volcanic field full of boiling mud pools, and colourful mineral water pools. One of the pools was called The Artist's palette, since it had several round mineral wells of different bright colours. Bright yellow, blue, and red, the colours of sulphur, arsenic and antimony, and the golden sparkling Champagne Pool. We happened to be there jus when the Lady Knox geysir was about to erupt. It wasn't as faithful, as some famous geysirs, so the man from the Thermal Wonderland poured some natural soap into the geysir for lowering the tension of the water, so that it will be sprayed out even with lower steam pressure from underneath.

In Wairakei we stopped to look the Geothermal Power Plant. They collect steam from the ground in this volcanic area. It is then used for producing electricity. We road up to a lookout place, from where we could see a large field of these steam pipelines.

From Wairakei we rode on to Taupo, where we visited the office of the Automobile Association (AA). We bought an eight volume NZ map, that Wolfgang had recommended to us. However, despite the AA purchases many roadsigns in NZ, the names in the roadsigns couldn't be found in the maps and vice versa. Also my one volume German Nelles map of NZ had much more interesting backroads in it than these large scale maps. The fact that the roadsigns are small, and you cannot find the equivalent names in your maps caused a lot of U-turns for us.

Then we rode on to Napier. The distance was 150 kilometers, with two third of it very boring road, except one waterfall lookout. the last third was very nice and twisty mountain pass with great views.

In Napier we checked again the tyre pressures. The front was leaking too fast, so it had to be fixed before heading to the Kuripapango road. The guy in Holeshot's had thrown the old tyre repair kit away saying that he would buy a new one for us. It wasn't there. Again we had some luck, because despite it was Christmas eve, one motorbike shop was still open at four o'clock pm. so we got the front tyre fixed. The reason for the leak was an small pebble of aluminum between the tyre and the tube that had worn the tube. It was obviously broken off the rim in the previous tyre assembly.

Our next road was chosen to our route immediately after I found it in our first Nelles map. It was mentioned as a "difficult road". It was wild. First only some sheep stations, and valley. Then it turned to gravel, and there was the dark mountain range in front of us. I just held my breath, and thought, are we crazy Finns going to pass those mountains along this kind of narrow carriage path.

That's exactly what happened.

Once again loose sand, no rails, deep drops, and low speed. In the halfway, in Kuripapango there was a narrow bridge over a river canyon. After that there was a couple of kilometers paved road, called The Gentle Annie's Hill. The hill was so steep, that gravel would have been washed down the road. That's the reason for asphalt in such a distant spot. Maybe some Gentle Annie had paid this part of the road. No-one seemed to know the history for such name.

I met quite a many bikers in NZ, but never met anyone, who had ridden this road. Actually quite a many people knew someone, whose friend had ridden it. So we couldn't share our experience with anyone. That was doubtlessly one of the most memorable stage we rode in NZ. Far from the civilisation, the real opposite of Tokyo, real holiday, no worries, and this sheep station called Erewhon (nowhere backwards).

When we finally got to the Desert Road, we rode north to Waiouru, where whe turned left to Ohkune. We rode the road that passes the Mt Ruapehu national park from south. Again magnificent view. The backpackers lodge in Ohakune was dead. Only us and one German lady. During skiing season this place is full, unless old Ruapehu feels like spilling some ash onto its sides melting all the snow off. The lodge was an old villa, built 1914 and now renovated to a backpackers lodge. We had a fireplace, a christmas tree, and Blackadder's Christmas in the television presenting Rowan Atkinson.