Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014

Superb so far!

Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014

I like verbose and all the details...it's like being there, don't cut it short. People can scroll those who want to look at pictures only.



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Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014

Congrats on your marriage. What a way to start the journey!! .

Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014

The most awaited blog and pics !! Keep sharing & it might help other even down the line !! [emoji12][emoji12]


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Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014

Awesome narration and splendid captures! I will definitely be looking forward to updates more often, and might I say, this is one of those captivating travelogues after a long time. Hope that you can frequent you visits to the editing page.

Thanks for sharing, bro! The nitty gritties are indeed insightful, especially for cash-deprived folks like me.

Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014

[MENTION=10473]Praful[/MENTION] bhai. Married men normally don't get time for updating blogs and all that. But still

Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014

Not updating anything here​ till you guys stabilize the platform. Already lost 2 days of log with the step back from vb5 to vb4 :/

Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014

Oh ho, that is how i missed it. Been out for a bit. In fact i never even saw the VB 5 update which saw so many problems.

Searched the VB5 section and found this - Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014 - xBhp.com : The Global Indian Biking Community

Yes that is a lot of lovely photos and post gone missing, unfortunately. Let me see if i can help.

----consecutive posts auto-merged-----

Please PM me your email ID. Will send you the stuff to copy paste. It should work.

Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014

I have the "maal", haven't posted it back because I thought there maybe a restoration of old posts from vb5.

Though I had my doubts - http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/forum-an...ml#post1169655

So I am waiting for an update on this, if its confirmed there is no restoration going to be done, then I will put up the older posts.

Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014


We have the data as you saw in the link in the previous post, but it is unlikely (99%!) that the data from 5 would be got back onto 4, as you correctly guessed.

I am sure you have all the text and photos. But you would have to format the entire post like you probably did the first time, including inserting the images. If you want you can just copy paste the stuff and get back your post including the formatting, photo insertion etc.

Let me know.

Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014

Thank you buddy!

I have the post with formatting and photos

Since you have confirmed that posts are not coming back, I'll post up the 2 days logs.

Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014

Let the feast begin

Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014

Beautiful. What a location you have chosen. Sirji, We are all glued to this thread for more pics. Let me see Oz and NZ sitting in front of my PZ.

Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014

Day 1 - Moment of Truth

14.December.2014 Christchurch to Kaikoura - The previous day was meant to be a rest day to recuperate from the tiring 30+ hour flight. But with collecting the bike and spending the evening at our family friends place there wasn't much time to spare for rest. To top it off, we still had to rearrange all our stuff into the panniers and top box. Considering we had two full suitcases, it looked highly unlikely that we'd manage to stuff it all in, moreover the Givi cases can take only upto about 10-12 kgs of weight on the side panniers and about 7-8 kgs on the top box. Anything heavier and you might just crack the frame. After we packed everything into the boxes, we were still left with almost as much as one suitcase worth of stuff left out side. We repacked everything again the 'right' way, still just managed to squeeze in just about 10% more stuff. We did not push further because we were already a little over the limit of the Givi cases capacity.Now our quandary was what to do with the extra luggage, whether to leave it at the current BnB or cart it all the way back to the motorcycle rental where we had left our empty suitcases the day before. It made more sense to drop it off at the rental place because it would mean one lesser thing to do, moreover it was just a small deviation from our route today. After a light breakfast at the BnB we bid our goodbyes to Laurence & Sharron and left. We stopped over at the motorcycle rental place to dump the extra luggage and just re-org all our stuff before we 'finally' started our trip.

Today was a short 180'ish kilometers ride to Kaikoura, and google said it would take us just 2.5 hours to reach. I knew we would take a lot more than that, but I had planned for the first day's ride to be short because I would have a fairly large learning curve adapting not only to the roads and traffic rules, but also the the bike. I've been riding a 220 for years now and that too solo. Riding a 220 Kgs bike with almost 40 Kgs luggage and a 50 Kgs pillion is an entirely different ballgame. The traffic was really sparse on the highways despite being a Sunday, this was good for me because it gave me plenty of space to adapt to the new bike. On these open roads, even a slight amount of wind and the bike would get thrown about. All the weight concentrated on the rear didn't help either because it made the front end quite light, which was good for quick turns in traffic, but at higher speeds it would get a little twitchy even in the slightest hint of wind. The boxes just added to it because it made the bike almost like a sail which caught slight any wind thrown at it. It was almost as if I was riding a bike for the first time.

First break, So far so good !!



Smooth, Empty, Beautiful NZ Highways

New Zealand highways are like 'good' quality Indian state highways, they are mostly two lane highways but wide enough to fit large size trucks in one lane. Everyone sticks to the rules (well almost!) and the speed limit (100 Kmph). For overtaking on these highways, you need to wait for dedicated passing lanes that allow slower vehicles to move into a left lane and allow faster vehicles to move ahead. I stuck to the well within the speed limit, not wanting to be slapped a fine and controlled all my 'Indian' instincts of riding, this lead to me holding up a few faster moving vehicles at times. We took our first break within 60 Kms to stretch and we took another break for light brunch at Mainline Station cafe 40 Kms later. We were making really slow progress and we slowed down even further once the twisties started. With wife in tow I was extra cautious and did not want to push my luck too much. While 100 is the speed 'limit', the highways have signs at many places which show the 'recommended' speed for that stretch of the road. And guess what, I stuck to that recommended limit like a leech, because it was admittedly quite scary and I did not want to drop my wife (and/or bike).

Light brunch at Mainline Station Cafe



The guy at the back jumped in for a photo bomb, but sadly no pic of that

As we were descending from the twisties, we had our first peek-a-boo of the pacific ocean. The chill in the air went up a bit as we got hit by the cold sea breeze, quite the opposite experience here in India where it gets hot and humid as we get closer to the coast. We were glad to have rented out the riding pants with thermal liners, else we would have frozen our butts off. After we got down to sea level, it was an impressive last 20 Kms to reach Kaikoura where we had mountains on one side and the pacific ocean on the other, and there were also a few tunnels along the way. The cold weather and riding the bike the whole day (though barely 180 Kms) had tired us out a bit, we were super hungry but at 3.30 in the afternoon most of the diners were closed and there were no cafe's in sight. So we just rode directly to our BnB, only to find nobody there and the folks not picking up calls as well. Strangely enough the door was open and there was a note for us with all instructions that we needed, self-sufficient, yes! But the Indian in me kept feeling how is this even safe. After got our luggage into the room and got out of our gear our host dropped in for a visit, apparently they were taking a nap. After a quick exchange of pleasantries, we got a lot of tips on where to go and what to do for the next day and a half that we're there.

First view of the Pacific Ocean





Riding down the twisties



Short Video of the ride down the twisties to sea level

Mindblowing colours of the South Pacific Ocean





Riding along the coastal highway



Walking along the beautiful alpine trees along the Kaikoura Beach





Passione Italian Restaurant

Our host presented us with plenty of options to grab a bite, of course most of them were not going to open for another 1-2 hours at least. So after resting our backs for about 30 minutes, we put on our walking shoes and headed towards beach to take a walk and try our luck with any place that may be open. We ended up walking almost two kilometers to the other end of beach where the main market area was along with plenty of cafe's and restaurants. Finally we found an Italian place (Passione Italian Restaurant) which worked for both of us, my wife being a pure vegetarian makes finding places to eat a challenge in itself. Being summer meant we had daylight almost till 9PM, which is excellent for riding because that allows us plenty of time to ride and also to see places along the way. The breeze had picked up as started our walk back because the tide was coming in at that time. In adequately prepared for this wind we just shivered our way back home. It had been a tiring day from riding 180'ish Kms to walking for almost 5 - 6 Kms after that, we were exhausted and just crashed for the day. We needed the rest for tomorrow, because it was going to be an exciting day with two adventure activities lined up.

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Day 2 - The Sea Beckons

15.December.2015 Kaikoura - I was up early in the morning, partially because I was excited for the upcoming day today and also because I had slept very early the previous night. Since we were on the East coast of New Zealand, it also meant there would be an amazing sunrise to catch. Out of excitement I jumped out of bed and slapped on some thermals and stepped out into the cold morning with camera in hand. It was a lovely morning, but unfortunately where I was positioned I could not see the sun rising out of the sea as it was hidden behind the hill in the bay.

First rays of the sun



As the sun's rays break over the mountain over the bay





A short time-lapse video of the rising sun

Our street

The first activity we were to do today was swimming with wild dusky dolphins in the open ocean, followed by whale watching late in the afternoon. Encounter Kaikoura runs this fantastic operation for swimming with dolphins, and we had booked this months in advance. I was just a little worried about my wife having motion sickness as we head out into the open ocean (more on that later). We had booked the second trip of the day with Encounter Kaikoura i.e. 8.30AM (their first trip is at 6.30AM), and we reported there much ahead of of schedule only to see a big line of people already signing up. After the formalities were completed, everyone was huddled up for a brief talk about the gear we were getting and the basic do's & don'ts about it. Men and women were then sent to separate rooms to find the right size of the suit and flippers. Once everyone changed into their suits, we were made to watch a 20 minute documentary which took us through of what is expected out of us and a brief history about how the whole company came to be. We were then packed into two small buses and we drove out of town and to the south bay where two boats were waiting for us.

The boats took us out into the open ocean to areas where the dolphins were swimming, we would enter into the ocean at that point and swim along side the dolphins. We were not allowed to make physical contact with the dolphins but it was OK to swim with them. And, the dolphins weren't entertainment for us, rather it was the other way round where we were to entertain them by making all sorts of funny noises. While on the way out to sea, every time the boat would sway up and down, my wife would feel sick and I was worried she would get sea sick. But by the time we completed our fourth jump into the sea I had started to have signs of sea sickness, this was very strange for me as I have been on boats out in the ocean many times in my life. I could not manage the 5th round, which my wife did by herself. On the way back, I was just sitting with a bucket in front of me wanting to puke at every slight undulation the boat went through. We could barely capture photographs as were busying shooting video of whole series of dives. Here's a short trailer.


I was really sick by the time we came back and was literally puking everything out, which made me really weak. Back on dry land I was starting to feel a bit better, but my stomach would take some time to settle in. So we called the Whale watch folks which we were scheduled to board in a few hours, to find out more. They told us that if you got sick on the Dolphin boat then you will definitely fall sick on the whale boats as they go out further into the ocean and later in the day the sea gets more choppy. They were kind enough to issue a full refund of whole ticket amount because I was in no condition to make it for the whale watching experience. I just spent the rest of the afternoon in bed recuperating from the morning episode, while my wife enjoys poking fun at me for the fact I got sea sick, I feel it was the diving suit which was too tight which made me sick. Who is right? I guess, we'll never know.

After a short siesta in the afternoon, we headed out to grab a bite and explore a little bit of the farther away bits of Kaikoura town. Most of the cafe's and restaurants were closed by the then and we had to stay hungry. We first headed to the top of the hill that outlines the Kaikoura peninsula, after some breathtaking views of Kaikoura town from there we explored the Peninsula walkway. After we had soaked up enough of the sun, we headed back to room to relax and just wait out the time when restaurants would open for dinner. Because we were really hungry after the tiring day swimming in the ocean. Since we had saved a fairly large sum of money by cancelling the whale watch tour, we splurged a little by heading to the best restaurant in town for dinner.

Our BnB in Kaikoura, its a heritage 100+ year old home



Some random photography tryouts





Along the Kaikoura Beach Road



Kaikoura bay from the top of the hill





Taking a walk along the peninsula now that it was low tide



Dinner time, I had the daily fresh fish of the day



And she had a veg pasta

The Green Dolphin Restaurant and Bar is famous in Kaikoura for its seafood, which incidentally was pretty amazing. And the pasta that my wife had was very well made too. This restaurant indeed deserves the 'best in town' badge. After dinner we just headed back to our room, the next day we were to ride further up north along the beautiful ocean road and enter the Nelson region which is famous for its beaches. The distance was slightly more, about 300 Kms from where we were. The GPS optimistically, told us that it would be hardly a 4 hour journey, I knew it would be a little more than that. But we met another biker on the road and it became a lot more than that

Note: The quality of the pics vary wildly as they are taken from 4 different cameras of differing capability.

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What's next ?

Re: Crosswinds - A Biker Honeymoon : New Zealand Dec'2014

Nicelly written Prafullbhai. Glued to your thread. Already started dreaming for honemoon like this......please bring it more and soon, this "WHAT NEXT?" is suspense like "KATTAPA NE BAHUBALI KO KYU MAARA?" HAHAHAHA