Whangarei - heading north

From Auckland, we headed north to explore Northland. Our first destination was Whangarei, which is about 150 km north of Auckland. We found many useful tips for our trip on the motorbike caravan website (e.g., a link to a free GPS map that is excellent). The website also has contact information for motorbike riders from around the world. In Whangarei, we stayed with Peter, a German expatriate, and his wife, Su. Peter rode his motorcycle from Germany to Asia and then to New Zealand several years ago. After I sent him an email, he promptly invited us to stay in their guest room. We spent two days with them.

The scenery immediately after leaving Auckland is beautiful, with green hills, forests, and farmland everywhere. One thing we noticed was the lack of sheep but plenty of cows and cattle.

Following Peter's advice, we avoided the Highway 1 as much as possible. This made motorcycling enjoyable right away, with small roads and little traffic. We also went on a short ride around Whangarei with Peter and enjoyed the landscape. It is fascinating how it can look like the Black Forest one moment and then there is a wonderful swimming bay. Now we just need some warm weather for swimming, as currently it is only 15 degrees Celsius.