side-to-side handling , but the balance is great and the Morini took it all in its stride . Time for a brunch meet-up with Simon at one of his favourite lunch stops , Ollies Café and Grocer in Maungaturoto . Wow , lovely Middle Eastern-inspired food and a wonderful host – thanks Ollie ! As we left I looked longingly at Simon ’ s aggressive knobbly tyres fitted to his R1200GS , but figured the well-used standard Pirelli Scorpion Rallys on the X-Cape should be up to the task on nice dry , thinly gravelled ( hopefully ) roads of the North . You can get straight into gravel heading north from Maungaturoto , the well-trodden ADV route of Golden Stairs Rd taking you all the way through to Taipuha . From there head up to Waiotira where you can either head west toward Dargaville or continue north to Maungatapere . This large area between SH1 in the East , SH14 in the north and SH12 to the west and south still offers some of the best gravel riding and scenery to boot . Many of these roads are those used in past NZ Motorsport Rallies , chosen for good reason . One option we had was to head up on the gravel from Kirikopuni , around the back of Houto Forest and up to Twin Bridges , but soon realised we might run out of time for planned afternoon roads , so cut some of this out and gapped it to Twin Bridges instead . We were after Waimatenui Rd , which heads west from the bridges and can take you all the way across to Donnelly ’ s Crossing , SH12 and the Waipoua Forest , famous for the Tane Mahuta Kauri . Having ridden that route in the past we instead carried on north at Waimatenui then , just after the Te HueHue Marae , left via Wharepunga , Ninihi and Otaua Rd ’ s though Otaua and finally onto SH12 via Punakitere Loop Rd . A great run of quiet and fantastic winding gravel roads . Time to clear off some dust with a blast through to the Hokianga Harbour and our overnight accommodation at the famous
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