I decided to finish off our NZ adventure with a bang and booked an 1,5 hour motocross tour. So fresh from breakfast and full of energy I arrived to the bike depot and realized I was the only one doing the trip on that morning. Cool, a private tour! So I collected and assembled the gear, and met my guide out on the paddock for a test drive. The aim was to get to know the bike and for him to check out my skill level so he can decide the route. I did tell him that I'd done a bit of off-roading in Finland about 15 years ago; I'm guessing that that's what he made his assessment on as when I started on the practice rounds he went to gear up (without watching my preliminary performance). When I'd done my first round he came back and said lets go!
We started quite fast across the farm lands and went up and down on the grassy hills. Great fun! Dodged some sheep, cows and hobbits: quite a good warm up on your muscles. On terrain like we were on you don't actually sit on the motocross bike, but you stand and use your legs as suspension. Sweaty business with carcass like mine...
Some of the hills are quite steep, resulting in this flying finn having a heart attack and shouting s**t on the way down. Those aerial acrobatics were not quite intended and its a miracle I came down upright, but now afterwards are fun to think about. Reward for all this climbing on the hill sides was an amazing view over the lake Rotorua and it was clear enough to see all the way to the sea.
After some catching up on some breathing and admiring the scenery, he told me that I'd done pretty good and said we will go to the more demanding forest & bush tracks. Similar scenery as yesterday on the quad trip but this time I didn't have as much time to admire it as I had full time job trying to make sure I didn't drive to a tree-fern or do more unintended aerial acrobatics (eg when the bike stops in a half a meter pot hole and I continue on...). But overall I had a great time! Guess the biking experience so far paid off as my guide also decided to go and investigate some new routes he had not seen before. More amazing scenery and tracks!
Unfortunately the fun had to stop at some point. Guessing it was also good as I started to be pretty much drained. Can't remember the last time I had such a workout! Hope I will be able to climb to the plane tomorrow to head to Australia...
While Harri was getting his final adrenaline rush, I had a quiet day with plenty of time to reflect back on our stay in NZ. Of course I wish we would have had more time here, particularly to explore more of the country by foot, but overall I think we managed to cram in quite a lot of mileage, scenery and experiences, considering our relatively short stay. My highlights in some sort of categories:
Flora & Fauna
Best wildlife experience: close encounter with seals near the Tonga Island, Abel Tasman National Park
Best forest moment: Quadbiking through the rainforest
Most magical colours: 600 different shades of green in the scenery on the South Island (Christchurch to Queenstown)
and of course meeting a native Kiwi (bird that is)
Adrenaline
Most awesome: Helicopter ride over Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers
Most fun: Motorbike ride!
Food & Drink
Best garlic bread: The Gothic Restaurant in Motueka
Best lamb: Lamb salad with kiwi dressing at Macs, Rotorua
Best wine selection: wine tasting at Neudorf, near Motueka
Negative
Most annoying: Sandflies
sore muscles....
Overall we both feel like its the end of an era - ready for the next phase of our adventure.
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