Day Four (Tuesday 23 November)



Travel Time		Distance		Departing		Arriving
0700 > 0750	55km		Dannevirke Holiday Park, 29 George Street, Dannevirke				Event at Youth & Whanau Resource Centre, 6 McCarthy Terrace, Waipukurau
0830 > 0855	26km		Youth & Whanau Resource Centre, 6 McCarthy Terrace, Waipukurau				Event at Te Aute College SH2 between Hastings and Waipawa
1000 > 1030	27km		Te Aute College, SH2 between Hastings and Waipawa				Event at Flaxmere College, Henderson Rd, Flaxmere, Hastings
1130 > 1200	21km		Flaxmere College, Henderson Rd, Flaxmere, Hastings				Event at Maraenui Shopping Centre, Geddis Avenue, Napier
1330 > 1515	117km		Maraenui Shopping Centre, Geddis Avenue, Napier				Event at Marine Parade, Wairoa
1600 > 1730	100km		Marine Parade, Wairoa				Event at House of Breakthrough carpark, Cnr Lytton and Ormond Rds, Gisborne
1930 > 1935	4km		House of Breakthrough carpark, Cnr Lytton & Ormond Rds, Gisborne				Accommodation at Inn Paradise, 13 Leith street, Gisborne 06 863 3504

After a good sleep (even if a fraction cold) the wakeup was 5.30 (again...). A shower and packing the gear and we are ready to roll at 7am. Greg from work and his sister had ridden down fron Hastings and join us. The ride is a fraction cold, but no rain. And as we cross the boarder in to Hawke's Bay it gets a few degrees warmer (Seriously!!). No coulds in the sky and getting warmer; I know I am getting closer to home!

As we come in to Waipukurau we pick up a few additional riders and we do a tiki-tour through the town before riding to the Youth and Whanau Resource Centre. We are warmly welcomed by a bunch of staff and volunteers who work tirelessly in the community making a difference. Approx 10 more riders come down from Hastings and join in, and suddenly we have over 30 bikes there. At 8am on a Tuesday this is not the norm and we get some spectators, but they are reluctant to join in. The small children sing for us before they go off to school and we have a cuppa and some scones. Nice!

Just before Waipukurau

In Waipukurau

Next stop: Te Aute College (Boarding School for Maori Boys). As we were walking towards the Marae we heard from inside this massive sharp haka. It made my neck hairs stand up! Once inside we found a group of young men performing with military precision. The principal spoke to us and welcomed us and our message. He also admitted that there was problems with violence at the school. As we greeted each of the boys individually I was surprised to find that some of them were taller than my 6f2. The college is trying to educate these young men but somehow I felt that they might not be succeeding fully in making them take the right path. After a cuppa, a few scones and some talk with the students and teachers re why we were there we were once again on our way.

Te Aute College



 Next stop Flaxmere College. I was asked to ride in front of the group to show the way. I have always found the different ways in to Flaxmere confusing and really only use one of them. But as that one was on the wrong side and would have made the ride too long I had to take the southern one and hope I would figure it out as I did ride. Luckily I got my bearings very soon and we rode in to the College and also managed to get the Hastings Mayor, Lawrence Yule, on to a bike for a short ride in to the school.

We were warmly greeted by Henare O'Keefe and four bikes rode in to the hall. More welcomes, hakas (what a difference between these and the Te Aute College ones!) and speeches. Again Mahu did him self proud with his speech and the way he comes across. I highly admire and respect him. What a champ!

Mahu at Flaxmere College



From Flaxmere we rode through Hastings, Havelock Nth and Clive to Maraenui in Napier (At the evenings briefing and reflection of the day there was some unhappiness re the ride through Hastings as the group got separated as a result of cars and traffic lights. As I was leading the group through this I felt a little guilty as I could have taken a much straighter route. But as this is my home town I wanted us to be seen. So I just took it on the chin. Get over it!).

We arrived at Maraenui where Hilda was waiting for us. She is another champion that works tiredlessly in her community. She also knows everyone (and their kids) by first name there! Lovely woman!

Once I had everyone there I left to pick up Mahus new leather pants. (As we were at the Marae in Porirua his oilskin pants got stolen. He had not told anyone as he did not want this to colour all the good work they were doing. But I noticed that he was riding in a pair of black jeans. And Monday was not a warm day! So when I asked why, he told me. But did not want me to say it out loud. As I love the guy and all his work I offered to sponsor him a new pair of oilskin pants. But after some research i found that we did not have these in HB. So the next best was sourced: A pair of black leather pants from Pakistan... )I left to pick them up while all others stayed to do their stuff in the Maraenui centre.

Hogged in Onekawa had a pair that was perfect size for my mate Mahu. But when I got there I was told that they do not take credit cards, do not accept cheques or let anything out the door w/o payment. EFT-POS was fine. But I did not have enough on my card... what now? I told the owner who I was, why I needed the pants, I even showed him my drivers license (bad move, more re that later...). But no go. So I had him to ring my job and check who I was. Yep, they still remembered me! And so I organised for Louise to cash a cheque and bring the money to him. By now he had taken a little pity on me (and perhaps was looking forward to some food money...) and allowed me to ride away with the pants before he held the cash.

I put the pants under my bum and rode back to Maraenui where Mahu was soon happily showing all who wanted to see his new leather pants!

Maraenui

Once back I went around and spoke with people. I found a patched gang member who did not have a White Ribbon. I offered him one and he took it and fastened it on his vest stating: "I will carry this one with pride!"

I also spoke with the police and asked if they could give us an escort out to Bay View BP. They happily obliged and we left with a police car leading the way with lights and sirens on. Cool! There was now approx 20 riders. As we came in to Bay View (and the 70K/h area behind the police escort we passed a bunch of police cars and one of those fancy new speed camera vans with a camera both ways. Inside my helmet I was laughing out loud! That was the last i had planned when asking for the escort but realised that without the escort we would have been doing over 80k/h easily all 20 of us. Brilliant!!

Once we had tanked up at Bay View we headed for Wairoa. This is one of my alltime favorite roads in NZ. Challenging, fun, fast in places and the view is stunning. To our surprise we found that there was not too many cars/trucks on the road and we did good time.

Just outside Wairoa at Cafe 27 we were met by Jason, one of the organisers and also a Wairoa police constable. He is also a keen biker and would, together with his boss, ride with us to Gisborne.

The event was held on the grass between the Marine Parade and the river and to get there we had to ride under the bridge. No problems for the bikes. But Stacy, our young truck driver that we had borrowed from the Army, also wanted to bring the truck there. Not a good idea he found out as he got stuck under the bridge...



To get the truck free we all jumped on the back to lower it. This was enough to get Stacy to be able to reverse it out. But some damage was done to the rear of the roof. But straight away a panelbeater offered his services for free. So while we got on with the event, Stacey took the truck for fixing.

Wairoa has more than it's share of small town issues. There are the two rival gangs, the unemployment, the distance to anywhere, lack of income, alcohol, drugs and sadly violence. But there is also the dedicated team who work tiredlessly to help. Thou I was told that it is demoralising when as soon as they have managed to help someone there is two more new cases to work on. I do admire them. So committed to their communities!

As we left we rode to where the truck and Stacy was. As we waited for a few minutes I noticed a group of men watching us and the truck. I rode up to them for a chat and found them to be road workers that had ended their day and had a beer. I asked if they knew re the White Ribbon and yes they did, but no-one had one. So I offered the two I had left. Two guys took them and pinned them to their shirts, but I sensed it was not what each of them would have done. Would have loved to be a fly on the wall later to hear the discussions and the differing opinions...

We rode on towards Gisborne in the settimg sun. Still dry and warmish. We stopped just before Gisborne at a look out spot for a small rest and a photo opportunity. Many of the guys had never been on this road.


On to Gisborne and House of Breakthrough. By now I was running on reserve (no, not the bike, me). As we got there we were greated by performance, song and speeches. All well and fitting. But I had sort of run out of steam for it. So I focused on the dozen or so kids on the grass at the back climbing in the tree. We became good mates and had fun while all the adults listened to the performances. A little girl was cold and I lent her my leather jacket and she decided she was a bat. One boy wanted to show me how high he could climb and jump down from, I had to spin some around and we were playing tag and laughing. That was fun!

After we were treated to a good dinner with nice pudding. All happy! I had a good chat to the reverent of the place who told me how they had no government funding but were running small businesses to get funds and also accepted donations. The main focus is on working with youth and giving them a second chance. Impressive facilities! I then found that he would ride with us the next day! How cool is that!!

I was to stay at the site sleeping on one of the camp beds we had in the truck. But Mahu would not have it and organised for me to sleep in the motel. Nice!

That was another long day and 400 Km's KM's of riding. There was some tired faces around!