NZ Travel Bubble

We all love to get out and spend a day in the saddle. Whether you’re riding with a crowd of one or 101, a day riding always makes things better. Displaced Queenslander Phil Heath is a NZ resident and looks at the local riding roads with a different view to a Kiwi-born rider. Here’s how he spent a winter’s day riding round the Auckland area.

- Phil Heath

As I write this now, I don’t know when you’ll be reading it, so maybe a safe international travel bubble is already open, or maybe it’s still coming.

But one thing seems certain, Aussies will be able to travel to New Zealand before anywhere else. For riders, if you think that’s too limiting, think again! As an Aussie who moved to Auckland, the riding here – nationwide – is brilliant. It’s a hilly place around where I live, and further south it becomes volcanic and mountainous, but that means the backroads are all corners. Properly-banked corners.

There are no wallabies, kangaroos, emus or other big-bastard-things trying to knock you over. Forgetting the sheep and cattle and farm animals because they’re behind fences, the biggest endemic mammal is a bat. The biggest introduced mammal is the Brushtail Possum (came in from Oz), and even though they’ve evolved to be WAY larger than the ones you see in Australia, like the bat they’re asleep all day! On a motorcycle, the main thing to be careful about is being distracted by the scenery.

When you come here to NZ – ride! Harley dealers on the North and South Islands offer rentals, and a quick google search will find other local rental businesses.

All this is in my mind because today I thought I’d spend a few hours on two wheels, doing what a travel-bubble rider visiting Auckland might do in a day’s rental. Because I write a bit for HEAVY DUTY, and work as a consultant for H-D Dealers and in the industry generally, in the garage at the moment is a 2020 Heritage 114, on loan from Harley-Davidson Australia/New Zealand. And the morning was sunny and perfect!