The beginning of a one-month motorcycle camping trip in NEW ZEALAND | Norden 901 [S6-E1]

Mid-February, snow is laying thick most places in Norway, and motorcycle season is still months away. If you stay in Norway, that is. Alternatively, you could pack up all your riding gear, and all your camping gear, and in my case about eight kilos of camera gear. You could hop on a flight and travel 36 hours to the other side of the earth, and arrive at an island where dusk is replaced by dawn, right line riding replaced by a left, and best of all, winter is replaced by summer. Hello guys, and welcome back to my channel, and oh my gosh, I waited so long to say that. I am so freaking excited, I can hardly contain myself. It is right now the 13th of February, and I am located right now in New Zealand. The day I've been waiting for so freaking long is finally here. I'm here, and about to start this one month trip around New Zealand. I've spent over 36 hours traveling here, which was about 10 hours longer than intended. I was supposed to be chilling here from last night to this morning, but yeah, I arrived at eight o'clock this morning because of all the delayed flights, and now I am off to pick up my bike. This trip is a collaboration between Husqvarna Scandinavia and Husqvarna New Zealand, who are setting me up with a Norton 901. I'll talk you through the whole bigger plan just a little bit later. I just want to get on a boat, pick up the bike, and just get this trip started, but the quick plan for today, heading up there, picking up the bike, packing on all the stuff that I carry with me here. I got some of the Moscow gear here that is new, as you will probably notice, and just mounting all the camera gear, and then, yeah, heading off. This evening, I am meeting up with a couple named Sue and Graham Duncan, a biker couple. They've spent a lot of time traveling in Europe. We were supposed to meet up there when they were in Norway, but it never really happened, and it was never really that good time. But yeah, now I'm here, so I'm going to spend the first evening at their place. First thing, let's just get the bike and get on the road. Let's do this. Let's get this adventure started. About a 30-minute ride later, I pulled up at Husqvarna Motorcycles New Zealand's headquarter, finding a brand new Norton 901 waiting for me. After spending a good hour and a half equipping the bike with my luggage and camera mounts, the bike is looking sharp, and I was good to go. All right, I am here, and the bike is ready to go. I'm here with Sean. Could you introduce yourself? Hi, I'm Sean from Husqvarna New Zealand. I'm the marketing specialist for New Zealand, and we just handed over Ruben's new bike to go tour New Zealand. Yeah, and it's pretty new too. It is very new, so she's going to ride it in. She's going to go through the whole process, and hopefully she'll share the whole first service process and everything for you guys. Yeah, it's pretty standard. The only change that's made is basically putting on the wider foot pegs. Yeah, ready foot pegs, and then we've got the touristic luggage on it. I know this bike. I like it. I really appreciate that you guys are looking forward to seeing and hearing it for the museum. It's going to be good. Let's go. First ride on the left side of the road. We have about two hours to ride today. It's 2.30 already. I am pretty freaking tired, to be completely honest. As you can see, I now have a Peak Design holder for my phone here, so that's going to be handy. All right, we are on the road. On the road again. We are in New Zealand on the road again. 27 degrees, you guys. That is 30 degrees more than what I left in Norway, and that has to be downtown Auckland, is my guess. You can see over there. Nice. It didn't take many kilometers in rush traffic and those temperatures before I had to stop for my first New Zealand ice cream. It's quite warm. Also, because I wanted to take a look at the route to see if I can get off the highway, because it's not super interesting to stay on the highway there. I think I'm going to do a little bit of detour, parallel to the main road, pretty much. I can feel that I definitely need a moment just to get back into filming mode, but I'll get there. It's just a lot of new stuff in a day. Despite being a bit weary from my long travel and a little bit horrified by riding on the left side of the road, there is very little, if anything, that beats being thrown right back into a warm and green summer with birds chirping and insects buzzing, knowing that the winter is still holding an ice-cold grip on my home country. It is truly enough to make your eyes water for more than the pure freaking bliss. All right, guys. I wanted to just stop and have a quick chat before I arrive at my destination for tonight, which is only 15 minutes away. It's just so much happening in one day and there's so much information that I want to get out to you. Why choose New Zealand, which is so far away and which is so freaking expensive to travel to as well? Gosh, it's so warm. New Zealand just seems to have it all, you know. The nature, the views, the volcanoes, the everything. And it's just so much different landscape and different nature, different scenery in such a relatively small place. So yeah, it just seems like an overall really, really nice motorcycle destination. So here we are. When it comes to planning this trip, I have planned this for quite some time. I probably started the proper planning and actually booked my ticket about two months ago. When it comes to my route on New Zealand, I don't have anything set in stone like always. I want to plan pretty loosely. The only thing I know is I want to head to the South Island pretty quickly. That's where all the mountains and the views and all that really good stuff is. Yeah, that's my rough plan for today, for now. I do have several people that I want to meet up with. Some of them you know and it's going to be very interesting to introduce them on my channel as well. But yeah, this is the start. I always get so eager in the beginning, like I just want to do everything now. And yeah, also one of the issues about the small luggage quota of 30 kilos, bringing like all my gear, riding gear, camping gear, all that stuff, was I ended up leaving my sleeping bag and sleeping mat at home. And I'm going to be able to borrow some equipment from some Sjøengram. I brought my tent actually. But yeah, they were kindly offered me to borrow everything I need of camping gear from them. So super, super nice. We'll just Cambridge. Hello! Graham and Sue gave me a warm welcome with home-cooked dinner and good company. After checking out my very good looking bike of course. The next morning, the sun was up long before I was. Well rested, I went ahead and made some adjustments and added on to the camera mounts on the bike. Good morning guys and welcome to day two of my trip through New Zealand. Yesterday was a pretty long day, but short day both. Actually, short day in the terms of I didn't really ride that far. I ended up here at the Sjøengram place. Had a lovely evening with the dinner and all. Right now I am adding some mounts on the bike, doing some adjustments. I went through my footage yesterday and I wanted to make some small adjustments. Also wanted to install, because I got an Insta360 now, and I wanted to install a secure fastening point for that one. So I attached it here, put a tree here just so this one can rest in here. Because it's quite long, so when the Insta360 is going to be on the tip of that, you know, there's going to be a lot of movement. So I just want to make sure it's really nice and sturdy. Plan for today, heading further south. Sue and Graham are going to join me for the first couple hours of the trip, taking me on some gravel roads and such I think. And then I'm continuing on my own and hopefully today being my first night of camping. That's it I think. I'm going to take out the map this evening to show you, I do have a map this time, so I can show you where I'm about and where I've been and where I'm going. Stay tuned for day two. All right, getting ready to head off. All right, I have a new placement of my front camera here. Hope that's going to work pretty well. Ah, nice with the It's 22 degrees outside. It's already 11.30. No rush though, I can definitely feel the jet lag a little bit more today. So I'm just going to take it easy. I wondered before I got here, you know, do bikers, reef bikers also hear and also how? Because you're going to lift your left hand, but your left hand is towards the ditch now. But I guess you're just going to have to lift a little here. Sue and Graham told me that a lot of that are actually possums. Possums are not a natural animal from New Zealand. It was just from Australia a while back and now it's just gotten, well, it quickly got out of control because they multiply quickly. I've never seen a possum, so I kind of hope I can see one live one and not just an overridden one. Look at these. Nope. After giving this Insta360 a try, some adjustments needed, I almost passed Sue and Graham when catching up with them. Turning onto the road, I had my first, oh shit, wrong side of the road moment. Luckily, no cars coming against me, but damn girls, stay focused. So fresh and green everywhere. So nice. I like this vegetation. There's nothing like we have in Norway. All right. Our first gravel section. It's been a while, all right. My bike is... I can't complain though. They are riding too well. All right. Time to stop for a quick snack and maybe a coffee. All right. This is Sue. This is Graham. Hello. They hosted me this evening. We have been in touch on Instagram for, I don't know, a year or something. Yeah. When we were coming to do our Iceland and Norway trip. Yeah. Yeah. Because you spent 18 weeks. Yes. On the motorbike. Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Ireland. And you had all the good weather on the trip. Oh yes. We're very familiar with our wet weather gear now. And I found my boots leak. Yeah. You also have a bike here in New Zealand? Yes. We've got several bikes here in New Zealand. Yeah. So the one in England that we use for touring is a Versy 1000. And here we've got a Versy 650 and a KLR 650. And I have a little posty bike. Yeah. So cool. And you do all kinds of terrains too. Yes. Yeah. Gravel roads, river crossings. It's a bit of an adventure. We're just too naive to know any better. Well, if you just go for it, I mean. What can go wrong, eh? Yeah. We haven't fallen off in a river yet. And how long have you been riding motorcycles? I've been riding since I was 19. And then he learned on my motorbike. You travel a lot in New Zealand as well? We try to, but most of the big trips are all overseas. Yeah. Here it's just smaller ones. We'll save these ones for when we're too old to go overseas. Exactly. Well, I've gotten a lot of good advices on how to New Zealand and roads and different things. So I appreciate that. Yeah. We're really pleased that you're here to enjoy New Zealand. We thoroughly enjoyed Norway. So it's good for you to see where we come from. All right. You're heading back North. I'm going South and then we'll catch up again at the end of the trip. Yep. Absolutely. Yeah. Exciting stories. Exciting. That was it. I'm off on my own again. Oh, what a nice couple. Sorry. I'm just trying to close my pocket that I obviously opened. So welcoming and just always so nice to get some locals knowledge about just things in general. Now I am continuing further South to Lake Chukapo. I think I said that right. And then after that, I'm going to start looking for a place to camp. It's now 2.30 in the evening. That's my plan for now. Look at that. Oh, my gosh. I definitely think about the fact that this is the country where a lot of the Lord of the Rings has been recorded. It's almost like you can see Frodo and Gollum and all those characters coming, coming through there. The only thing that can make a ride in a day like this even better. Hey, Cardo, music on. Is music. There was a sign that said scenic lookout, so of course I have to check it out. Yeah, this is what I call the scenic lookout. Holy shit. Look at these mountains. I'm pretty sure that one in the middle there is a volcano. Actually, this whole area of Tongariro is a massive complex of volcanic cones and craters. Not to worry, there hasn't been an eruption since 2012. Right outside the Tongariro National Park, I find my first campground. Fetching that tent and setting camp for the first time on a trip is always a bit special. It sort of marks the official beginning. So fluffy. All right, guys, while I'm waiting for my noodles to finish swelling and my tea to cool down a little bit, let's take a look at the map. This is, by the way, a lonely planet. South Island, North Island. I arrived up here in Auckland. Husqvarna, New Zealand is like up here-ish. First day, started on a highway. Was heading for Sue and Graham, who was down here. Rode like 30 minutes on a highway. Figured, nope, this is too boring. Headed out here after the recommendation of Sue and Graham and followed a nice little road here-ish to their place in Cambridge. Today, I think we rode-ish this way. Then we ended up in Fakamuru, where they left at the cafe there. And then I continued on this road, the west side of Lake Taupo. And then I'm right here now, close to the volcanoes and mountains right here. Plan for tomorrow, I want to ride up to a ski resort on top of the mountain here and check out the view. And then there's a road that goes through Turakina Valley that crosses here-ish over, should be partly gravel road. And then I don't really know where I'm going to end up. Probably somewhere down here. I'll start looking at when to book the ferry that crosses over here. Tomorrow should be nice with a little bit of gravel. And yeah, quite jet-lagged today. I'm quite tired in my head, in my mind. That doesn't take away the experience of, holy shit, I have a new ceiling! Just riding down the road and seeing all the vegetation and all the places I've never seen. Yeah, it's just all so new and nice. I did go through some footage on my DJI now, and I noticed that the last couple of clips on my action cam doesn't have audio. The one that's in my helmet camera that's connected to the DJI mic. I think I accidentally pressed the mute button or something. But yeah, just something I need to be aware of going forward, I guess. Anyway, that's it for today. I hope you liked this episode. The first one from New Zealand. I'll see you again next. Bye!