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Friday – Matahiwi TrackGreat ride up in the King Country over Anzac weekend. Stephen Oatley (R1150), Peter Bates (650 Dakar), Stephen Clark (KTM 640 Adv) and I (HP2) left Wellington on Friday morning to meet up with a bunch of guys at the top end of the Paraparas to have a look over the Matahiwi Track. The forecast wasn’t that flash for the weekend but it held off for the run up the coast, in fact it was quite pleasant for this time of year. We made pretty quick work of SH1 all the way up to Bulls so we had time for a quick coffee and a chat with Bill Mason at the local motorcycle shop. Some nice imported machinery there if anyone is interested.Stephen and Stephen waited around for Gerard to turn up. Unfortunately he was not to make it, gather it was some electrical issue he had with the GS. Pete and I needed to be at the entrance to Matahiwi by 11:00 and made the mad dash so we could let the other know there were a few still coming. Suffice to say we were a little late but a crowd of ten keen gentlemen had turned out for it.
The Matahiwi is a short track, around 25kms, through private land and links SH4 with the Whanganui River Road. The northern entrance is only about 20kms shy of Ratahei so you end up going south again to Matahiwi, about half way between Wanganui and Ratahei on the Whanganui River road. The land at the lower end of the Matahiwi Track, which had been leased by the Flowers family, is now in the ownership of the Atihau-Whanganui Trust. Around 2,025 hectares was exchanged after the statutory notice in June 2006, at a compensation cost of $1.72 million plus livestock. The Trust members had just finished a quad tour of the land coming in from the other end of the track, fortuitous timing to say the least.
A short steep climb to the summit afforded fantastic views across to Mt Ruapehu. It was incredible dry as well.
Looking back down the valley where we had come from ….
…. and onwards.
Stephen was enjoying himself immensely ….
Eddie and Mark at the end of the track.
A right turn took us up the east side of the Whanganui River past the Kawana Mill. It’s worth a stop here. The Kawana flour mill was one of those provided by Governor George Grey, hence the name, "Kawana" (Maori for "Governor"), and was built in 1854. It closed down in 1913. In the 1930s the roofing iron was taken for use on the Matahiwi School.Next was the village of Jerusalem (Hiruharama), which was once part of a larger village called Patiarero, and has been home to two famous figures from New Zealand history; Mother Mary Aubert, whose Catholic mission remains today, and highly recognised New Zealand poet James K Baxter, who established a retreat and commune in Jerusalem in the late 1960s.Pipiriki Village is also an interesting place. It was a major centre of the Hauhau movement during the land wars and, if you take the time to wander around a bit you come across all sorts of interesting artefacts. Some of the locals have some pretty good stories as well. The headquarters of Whanganui National Park are also located here and they have some quite interesting displays of local history.We were charging though; keen to get to Ratahei for a pie at Clown’s Café, which in itself meant we were there quite early. The consensus was to go and have a look over Fishers Track before heading to Otorohanga to meet up with the others for the evening.Friday – Fishers TrackThis particular track is a bit of a challenge; even on a “good” day. It’s the best part of a 17kms downhill from the National Park end dropping from 900m to 400m. It’s a mixed surface with plenty of papa clay and lots of grass...interesting cornering! We all made it, but some not without spills and thrills in the deeper bogs or slippery bits.
The best bit is the wide, flowing gravel on Upper Retaruke Road following the exit from Fishers. This links up with Oio Road that takes you back onto SH4 at Owhango.From there, we basically charged up SH4, turned right onto SH3, grabbed some gas at Te Kuiti and made it to Otorohanga for around 7:00pm. Alex and John were down from Auckland so a pizza dinner with them at the Thirsty Weta was well in order.Saturday – King Country gravelAround 30 people turned up for the ride and on a great range of bikes, but fantastic that around a third of them were BMWs of one sort or other.
John, Henry and Darren were all on their new F800GSs, Peter had his 1200GS Adventurer, Alex was on his 80GS Basic, Pete was on his Dakar, Eddie on his 100GSPD, Colin came up from Taranaki on his 1100GS, Steven was with us on the 1150GS, there was a guy on a new F650GS (twin) with knobbly tyres on it and the HP2 was still going well.I quite like Graham’s Scrambler though.
We headed west from Otorohanga. I had a fair idea of what we were doing and where we were going, being Waikato born and bred, but Mark took us on an amazing excursion over some very fantastic gravel roads that I couldn’t for the life of me place names to. I do know it was roughly a circular route out along Honokiwi Road and around the western side of Pirongia, which on a clearer day would have given us a much clearer view of Kawhia Harbour.
We then headed through Te Anga and followed our noses past the Marakopa turn-off to Waitanguru and into Pio Pio for fuel and lunch. 
From there it was back to Marakopa Beach for a look. A few of us were made enough to try the drop at the end of the tunnel, fortunately enough hands on deck to gets us all back up again.
It was getting late and there had been a plan to have a bit of a play on the beach at Awakino, but by the time we got to Awakino itself it was getting on for 4:30 we basically gassed up and charged back through the Awakino Gorge before turning right back inland on some gravel across to Ohura. This last bit was great, albeit in the dark, with the gravel smooth and in better condition than the sealed route through to the main highway back to Taumaranui.All up it was about 400kms for the day. A great ride put together by Mark for us. I trust everyone else appreciate it as much.I left for Wellington on Sunday morning, choosing not to stick around and have to make the trip home on Monday as planned. Sad to have to give the 42nd traverse a miss this time around but I was not keen to ride home in the crappy weather forecast for the Monday. Hope everyone who did the 42nd had a great time; I’ll leave one of you to tell the story of that bit – and Fishers Track if they had time to do that as well. I hope it didn’t rain!!Great report Garry. I am sure someone will fill in the gaps. I only took a couple of pictures, but the only good one I have was from my ride to Otorohanga, taking some back roads. I have plenty of respect for the achievements of micawberism, haggis and Aslan, even though I think they're mad to take their bikes through such terrain. I've got a bit of a limp from arsing off on the last clay hill, but I had heaps of fun scooting through the traverse on my 'light-weight' R80GS. Coming from the Kapoors road end made the terrain strangely unfamiliar. I had completely forgotten about that last hill, because it was a down hill last time. By the time I clicked that it was just wet clay, it was too late. At least the R80 was light enough for me to turn around, hop back on and get it going again, well until I got stuck and needed a push. I suppose the T63's aren't that good om clay, maybe the karoo would have done better.
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