We woke up early, before eight. While packing our things, Elina found out, that one bag, containing her shorts, and one jacket was missing. We had some kind of idea, that we had seen it at Andrew's place, so we were not too worried. We believed we would see those things some days later.

Jeff, the manager of Peacock Lodge came to us in the morning, and told that Bruce had called from a motel in Wairoa, and asked to call back. So I followed Jeff to his office, and called that motel. I finally reached Bruce, and they were just about to leave. They had called already the previous evening, but Jeff refused to get me on the line. So Jeff told them that I would call back this morning.

Then they arrived, and it was again one of these encounters, that you have written to a person, and talked with him in a phone, but you have no idea what the person looks like, and how old he is. At least I knew what kind of bike Bruce rides, so it was no problem to know when he arrived. I confirmed quickly, that they accept an accommodation in a dormitory, since there was nothing else in the Hicks Bay Backpackers. That was OK, so Elina went to confirm our booking, and also reserved us another accommodation in a tepee. (so that's where the Tipi Backpackers name comes from...)

Motu

We headed towards Gisborne. We rode first and Bruce after us. He had a big BMW R1100 RT, and in some low speed curves it was faster than our small Beemer. When I had to shift up and down all the time Bruce could use his bike's torque. However, when we got some speed, it seemed that lighter baby Beemer was then slightly faster.

Anyway when we stopped for some fuel in Gisborne, we discussed about the speed and we all seemed to be happy with it. At the service station we met one German man with a BMW R80GS from the same rental shop than mine. He told he knows also Finland, and has once ridden our country through to Nordkapp, naturally with his own bike. I made a mistake, when I asked what bike he has back home. The answer was "Biemwii off cooz!". Sometimes I just cannot stand these German old farts, who think that BMW's old boxer is the only motorbike that one can even consider, and za best and za most reliabl technik in za welt.

A dead end

We agreed with Bruce, that we'd first ride to Motu, and then we'd check what the old coach road looks like, and then decide whether we go through it. In Motu I asked Bruce how does he feel, and we decided to go for it. We had 50 km narrow gravel and rocks ahead. Bruce went first with his tourer, and I followed.

They have used this Motu old coach road as a special stage for New Zealand Rally in WRC series. I cannot understand, how so sensitive, narrow road, full of landslides, and no passing possibilities can be used as a Rally stage. This has been the slowest in average speed of all the stages so far.

Having a break

We stopped couple of times on the road to check whether we could find one forest track to Opotiki, and if it would have been rideable. Didn't find it. Maybe it was better, since the Motu road was a challenge itself. The rocky downhills were the nastiest, since the baby Beemer was nodding quite deep, and Elina was always sliding against my back. Surprisingly the big BMW was better on those places. Because it's telelever suspension, it didn't nod at all, and because of the king&queen type saddle, Svetlana didn't have any difficulties to stay in the pillion seat. The last break we had on one small bridgeless river crossing, where the news flashes from the NZ Rally always come from. The about 20 cm deep water always splashes high, and every time someone breaks some spoilers or aftercoolers or even their sump, since the banks are hard and sharp.

Like brothers

When we rode behind Bruce, we really had to eat the dust, since the road surface was very fine sand. It would have taken minutes to wait the dust totally settle down, so we just rode in the dusty cloud, and had a grey coating after a while. When we reached the main road again we decided to find something to eat. We found one Maori takeaways place, ordered some food, and borrowed a wet rug to clean our visors. That place was a mistake. The food took almost a half an hour to prepare, and the rug left a fishy smell to my visor. Anyway, after finally getting the food, we ate it on the seashore, and watched the smoking volcano on the White Island.

Hey, Down there!

In the Hicks Bay there waited us an 11-bed dormitory, and Bruce's and Svetlana's horrified faces. They obviously didn't know what to expect, but after a while the were like they had always stayed in backpackers' lodges. They didn't carry any food with them, so they had dinner at a motel nearby, while we ate sandwiches in the lodge's kitchen. We had a nice evening walk in the beach, and now we had more time to get to know each other better. We had chosen Hicks Bay, since they arranged sunrise tours to the East Cape lighthouse. Before going to sleep, we tried to decide whether we'd go to the lighthouse, or not. And if we did, should we go by bikes, or by arranged tour that cost a bit. We decided to wake up 4:15 a.m. and reconsider.

Bruce and Svetlana asked when the place gets quiet. I told that most of the people in the lodge are travellers, who leave early, so usually that kind of lodges get quiet latest 11 o'clock. When we went to sleep around 10:30 the dorm was already dark and quiet. However there were some noisy youngsters on the porch. Later in the night it started to pour rain. There was a thunderstorm, and the wind was really hard. I woke up to the sound of the rain, and started thinking what Stuart Scott had told. He had been last year around same time in the East Cape, and there was a cyclone, that washed some mountain roads off. He was blocked there over 36 hours, before he could return. We had only a bit over two days to catch our plane, so I didn't sleep peacefully that night.