Happy April Fools – 2009 World Tour Progress Report

[Original post by Elliot Mogerman – Transferred from yahoogroups.com]

Met up with the germans and went out for dinner and a movie, Alice in Wonderland 3-d. After a heart felt goodbye and see them soon in the US we went to BMW and organized crating of our bikes for shipping. We left Auckland and traveled all the way north to Cape Reinga where two seas meet and there is a cool little lighthouse overlooking the scenery. We spent several days seeing all the sights including 90 mile beach and the big sand dunes. I tried to surf down the dunes on my jacket, but would have been more effective on a sand board. The small towns we are staying in remind me of Australia. They all close early and it’s difficult to find food. At the most these small take away places are tolerable but nothing enjoyable.

We went off roading for a few hours in the morning and saw New Zealands biggest tree. Some things that don’t go his way, really fluster Mike. Unfortunately, in the afternoon while off roading again Mike dropped the bike in mud. Finally, I got photo evidence that his bike does sleep sometimes. In Whangerei we ate yummy pizza and nachos for dinner and recovered from the long day of riding. Everyone at this hostel wouldn’t leave us alone and kept talking to us. Normally not a bad thing, but they chose the wrong times to initiate long drawn out conversations. Every time we watched a movie, tv, or was getting ready to leave on our bikes someone would stop us and just start babbling about themselves.

Currently, I am at a crossroad in my life thinking about this adventure coming to an end. The numerous opportunities I have in front of me and the potential to go in any direction I want with respect to life, career, relationship, living, etc. When an individual has a road that can take them anywhere and be anyone to do anything, it can become quite confusing. Do I choose something now and try to plan this big future out or just wait and see what happens. Which choice is right and what happens now or tomorrow changes constantly based on the decisions I make. Certain things that are important to me now might not be later and vice versa. The only inevitable fact is everything changes.

With less than two weeks remaining we decided to ride around the last piece of country left to explore. Riding up the Coromandel peninsula was a fun, relaxing, beautiful, enjoyable, easy, and darn right wonderful last bit of riding we will have. We spent a few days off roading and riding around the coastline. The views are stunning and the weather hasn’t been perfect but good enough for us. Many parks, forests, water falls, and streams have caught our attention. Our days are cut short early since there isn’t a lot of ground to cover and we spend the night cooking and I read a book by the ocean usually. Today is our last day to visit the hot water beach and other attractions before we head back to Auckland tomorrow. 10 days and we are on our 20 hour commute home. I’ll be traveling in a series of short little bursts for a few months after returning. And somewhere in summer will be joining “normality” again. It’s such a necessary evil. Consider yourselves lucky, Mike and I were going to play an april first joke on everyone but I felt too guilty in case anyone believed it. So happy easter, belated Pesach (Passover for goyas), and this might be the last blog. You will have to wait for the conclusion in the book. Peace!