Winter 2019 - NZ7 Motorcycle Tour Start

NZ7   Motorcycle Tour Start

We all are supposed be driven from the Airport to the Hotel in Parnell, that was part of our tour package. Well, we are a day early and that is OK, but when we called for a pickup I was told I needed a coupon. A coupon? 

Somehow the communication was amiss. We emailed the rental office and they told us to just get a shuttle; someone will reimburse us we when get to the hotel. Well, we got to the hotel OK, we used a yellow bus Shuttle service, paid $ 44. -  NZ dollars for the two of us including luggage and were dropped off right at the Quality Inn Hotel in Parnell, a nice neighborhood street in Auckland. We have arrived, let the tour begin. Carol and I are looking forward to our deluxe tour.

Some of the Bikes

Ah, we never got a refund, but let’s start with the tour.

More Bikes

A whole bunch of bikes were parked in the parking lot and Carol and I, after checking in to the hotel, walked among the bikes looking at each one, not knowing which of those will be our ride for the following 2 weeks. Carol had asked for a F650 GS but we were told the 650 had a problem and she could have a F700 GS instead. Not a lot of change, except that Carol is familiar with a F650 because she owned one, but then had to make due with a bit of a foreign bike for her. 

I received, after signing all the paper work, a F700 GS as ordered but was warned that this bike cannot find neutral. I could shift from 2^nd to 1^st OK, but to find N was impossible. I know bikes have quirks and I managed just fine with this bike on the trip but why did they not give me a bike that is mechanically OK?

Checking Out His Bike

Ah, we asked for a GPS for each bike and the Rental office provided one for Carol and one for me. GREAT, except it was not a Garmin, not even a Tom-Tom, we received a rather cheap unit that worked OK, but … well, but it did not work exactly great. 

But, again, let’s start this trip slowly.

All OK

We had booked a room for one night before the tour started but when we checked in to the hotel
they housed us in an annex, not into the main hotel.

She's Happy

The reason given was that I did not pay enough for the first night to be in the hotel, I must have paid for a bargain basement room when I booked this one additional night. No biggy, just strange to me.  So after a one night’s sleep, we had to move our luggage to a different room, as the tour itself had a block of rooms in the main hotel.

First Room, Huge But Cosy

In order to save us hauling our riding outfit (suit jacket, pants, boots, gloves, etc) we had them shipped separately to the hotel weeks before. The hotel held this rather large box for us in their storage facility. While all the shipping worked well and it was no hassle, I would not do it again, it’s rather expensive to ship to NZ. I priced a UPS store in Canada to ship and they wanted close to $ 1000 Canadian dollars to ship via slow mail. Instead I went to the US and paid shipping via a regular Post Office US$ 244.35. Still not a bargain but with all our flights, it was more convenient not to have to be schlepping all our luggage during this trip.

New Room, Smaller But More Modern

We met most of the other riders haphazardly in the parking lot first. I do not recall being formally introduced to the people in charge from Te Waipounamu. Well, I knew Fred Rau, our tour guide for this trip as I had met Fred years ago at the Americade Rally in NY State. The reason we booked this trip advertised as Grand Deluxe was because Fred Rau was leading it, because Fred recommended this tour. I always thought of Fred as an astute man, he sure is a good writer. He used to be the editor for MCN (Motorcycle Consumer News magazine), a monthly. But I knew none of the New Zealanders who were walking around. Someone wanted my driver’s license, well, who are you?

View From Our Balcony Window

The paper work during the dishing-out of the bikes was a bit helter-skelter. Someone could not find the keys to my bike. The keys were in a pile, there was no prepared envelope for each participant. Someone had a top box but no key. Another bike sat in the parking lot without a key altogether. Strange organization, I thought.

We had a Welcome Dinner the night before we took off on our bikes. The menu sure was fancy. Here is what Carol ticked off on her menu, I still have this copy:

Lobby of the Quality Inn Hotel

  - Roasted vegetable couscous strudel on red capsicum reduction and served with mesciun leaves.
- New Zealand beef scotch fillet with roasted root vegetable and garlic-potato mash served with a rich port wine jus. 
-  Apple and rhubarb crumble served individually with vanilla bean ice cream.
-  Brewed tea or coffee

It did sound Grand Deluxe, right?

Chess By the Lake Behind the Hotel

Fred Rau gave a little speech. He explained to us all who he was, what he did all his life, etc. The speech was given with all participants present and during this speech Fred explained that he traveled a lot in his life-time, was exposed to many people, many nationalities, etc. The one nationality he did not like was German, he said. The Germans just drive him up the wall. Hmmm, do they? I put up my hand and told him I was of German descent!  Fred for the moment did not know what to answer, so he paused and then said: “well, I can make jokes about Germans because my last name is Rau”.  I let it go, no use talking about this any longer but I now knew this man’s mind set.

The day before the actual tour there was a ‘test ride'. Fred (Rau) led us out of Auckland into the surrounding area to just loosely give us an idea of what this tour is all about and how our bikes handle. We were a large group, a total of about 18 paying guests; a total of 16 bikes, including Fred’s. It was an OK test ride, despite all the traffic lights we had to get through and the group kind of stuck together, so the result was a ‘go’ for tomorrow’s take off and the total tour throughout the North and South Islands of NZ.

We are off to experience NZ, hold on to your hats.