Touring New Zealand

If you’ve ever needed an excuse for an international riding trip – and it’s probably fair to say that you don’t, actually – then a serious bike accident is as good as any…

- Martin Leslie

I was involved in a fairly serious motorbike accident back in October 2019, suffering two broken shoulders, multiple cracked ribs, lung bleed, broken leg and a broken pinkie (incredibly, the only one that still bothers me!). I was back riding in early December that year, albeit very tentatively at first. By Christmas I was thinking about a tour of some sort. I had heard a lot about New Zealand, some of which came from watching Henry Cole riding there on his television programme. Towards the end of January I contacted a Twitter friend over there, Brendon, to ask about the best time to visit; I was thinking either the start of their summer or the end. He advised that early summer was extremely windy and so March time was the best. He also gave me the address of a bike hire company that he recommended. This gave me a bit of a problem as I had been banking on November and didn’t want to wait another 14 months. After consulting my better half, I dived in and booked flights, bike hire and started looking at routes and stops.

With only four weeks to go, with suggestions from Brendon and the hire company, I managed to get everything arranged. One of our highlights was to visit Milford Sound in the south-west of New Zealand’s South Island, but this was put in doubt as the only road was completely washed out at the beginning of February with 1125mm of rain in three days and 200 tourists stranded there.

The long way there

We landed in Auckland, in the NorthIsland, at the beginning of March – after 32 hours’ flying – and two days later picked up our hire bikes, a 1250 GS and a 750GS complete with panniers. We would drop them off three weeks later, when we got to Christchurch in the South Island.