Cathedral Cove

In the morning, we packed our things and immediately after the shop nearby opened, we bought some food, and ate breakfast. Then we took our things to the lodge's reception for the time we'd spend in the Cathedral Cove. The beginning of the walk was further than we expected, but the bushwalk itself was shorter than we expected. So we reached the Cathedral Cove in less than 45 minutes. The place was mother nature's gift to the mankind. Such beauty you cannot create yourself. There were all kind of formations the wind, water, and the erosion had carved out of the sandstone and the rock. And the cathedral itself, a huge cavelike tunnel combining these two sandy beaches was magnificent. For northern hemisphere people it was a very different Christmas eve. We were lucky to be there early in the morning, since we were there almost alone. When we headed back, a boat brought all the time more people there, and in the bush there were loads of people walking towards us.

After two hours we were back in the lodge. We packed the bike, put on our gear and filled up the bike in a gas station nearby. It was at least 25 degrees Celsius, and the young lad in the gas station asked us if our riding gear was hot. We told him we'd keep our speed up, and the air would cool us. That was at least what we hoped. The heavy load and the mountain road had obviously kept the engine hot, and burned the engine cleaner, since the bike was running better than the day before. The Coromandel is again the best kind of road, that a biker can hope to travel along. Not too tight, not too straight, but just perfect! I only wish, that the sun wouldn't melt the tarmac so slippery. From the east side we rode across the peninsula back to Kopu, where we turned south. In Paeroa we stopped for an ice cream, and continued towards Hamilton.

When we reached Hamilton, we did some penalty laps, since either we hadn't studied our maps carefully enough, or the NZ roadsigning was again lousy. Finally we found sh3, that we took south. I didn't want to stop to check from my notes, what was the road that leads to Fentresses' place. I remembered that it's just south of Ohaupo, and it's called Br... Rb... something. Just after Ohaupo I saw a familiar looking corner, and there was a roadsign to Ryburn Road. The rest I remembered by heart. Dave and Judy didn't hear us coming. Neither did they hear the doorbell. After we wondered around, and called out them, we found them by the pool. We were invited in, and got some cool to drink.

Bridal Veil Falls

Then we started to think, what should we do. In our emails before I had suggested a Christmas ride. There was a good ride of about 150 kms first to Raglan, then via the Bridal Veil Falls to Kawhia and back. Dave suggested we'd take an old narrow gravel mountain pass to Raglan. That was really a nice road. Slow but beautiful. And again far from everything, that's one thing we always look for in NZ. Just when we arrived to Raglan, my speedo cable broke, and we were without speedo- and odometers. First I thought that no matter how new and expensive rental bike you have, always something breaks down. I checked the both edges of the cable, and they weren't loose, so the cable was broken. When you ride a bike without a gear indicator, you always check the revs at certain speeds, so that you know which gear is in, and you don't have to always test if you have any higher gears left. That's something I always do. So also this time I knew what revs are related to certain speeds, so that was no problem. The only problems were the Christmas time, backroads, and not-so-long mileage: Where to refuel, and how far you dear to go. Now we had to rely on the kms in the map and on the roadsigns. For some backroads we had neither of that information.

I filled up in Raglan, and we headed south. We stopped to Bridal Veil Falls lookout. Bridal Veil Falls was 55 meters high. We took the difficult track also down under the falls, and it was worth it. The falls was beautiful. I started to wonder, if a man could survive a jump down the falls. We doubted that although the falls usually carve the rock underneath them, so that it can be pretty deep under such high falls. Unfortunately we got an answer couple a days later, when we read from the newspaper, that someone had jumped down that particular falls, and did not survive.

We still had 30 km gravel to go. Actually that included this year's New Zealand Rally's special stages 17 and 13. We had a couple of short breaks there. After we got back to the tarmac, Dave stopped to a lookout. Then he told us, that we'll keep speed back, since Judy had forgotten the oven on. The way back was quite a speedy. In Pirongia there was one gas station open, and since the next day was a Christmas Day, I filled up once more just in case. After we came back to Fentresses' house, it was still there, and no smoke. Boy, were we relieved. The pie in the oven was just dried, but not burnt.

We had dinner quite soon after we got back: Barbecued steak, potato salad and broccoli. Dave asked us about the wine we'd like to have, and Elina answered red wine. Dave promised us red wine, and soon he found out, that only red wine bottle he had was some old gift bottle of French wine in a wooden box. He thought, that promise is a promise, and now he had at least an excuse to dig out a hammer, and open the wooden box. Boy, was that wine smooth.

Baby Pukeko

We had a special guest for the dinner. It was Judy's new pet: Only three days old baby-pukeko. A golf ball size black bird with five numbers too big feet. It needed food all the time, and was screaming constantly. Fortunately its scream was as tiny as the bird itself. Then we changed some Christmas presents. We got playing cards, with different NZ scenery in every card. We also got some towels. I gave them two Japanese folding coat hangers, that are easy to pack to a motorbike. They were actually patented thingies.