A forum for owners of Yamaha TTR250 trail and enduro bikes!

KiwiJeff · Senior Member

90 mile beach ride

Cubber · Super Guru

That looks a stupendous ride, whether it's 50 miles or 90 miles. wink

Is there a petrol station and garage at each end?

What happens if the tide comes in part way through the trip?

I've turned those that needed it and relocated to coincide with the descriptions.

Martyn

TTRfan · Super Guru

Nice one Jeff - thanks for sharing biggrin

Delighted to see you are making good use of your time wink

Brian

ttr steve · Super Guru

Thanks for sharing Jeff

Great photos smile

KiwiJeff · Senior Member

Firstly, thank you very much Dr. Cubber Esq. for your fine work on my Post. That is exactly as I would have wanted it done but my previously mentioned Computer Skills don't allow it and the Grandkids weren't available !

We had both filled up our bikes before leaving home and each carried 2 litres in our Backpacks, which we poured into our bikes as soon as the fuel tanks could take them. The total distance of the ride was about 260k and my TTR will do about 220k on a full tank (under normal circumstances) before the reserve is required. Hard packed sand needs more throttle to ride on so the usual 220k was not going to happen. My mate's WR holds less fuel because of the smaller tank (Radiator and all that). There were gas stations on the return ride, down the main road but I made it back to camp running on fumes. The WR had to top up on a wharf, at a fishing village. We don't like carrying fuel "on our person" but we knew the chances of "Devon Badgers" upsetting us on a dead flat, hard surface, were minimal.

The tides of 90 Mile Beach are available on Google so we had had our eyes on a mid-morning low tide and that had to co-ordinate with good weather. The beach is very flat so when the tide starts coming in, it comes in very fast. I have seen photos of vehicles that have been caught by the rising tide and of course they are ruined after having salt water right through them. They don't get left on the beach for long because of the environmental risk with fuel and oil going into the sea. A breakdown would be embarrassing but there are other vehicles out there who would come to your aid, I'm sure. We did see a chap who was "Walking the Beach." That would be a mind numbing exercise ! He was well kitted out so was probably camping in the sand hills overnight, as it would take a couple of days to walk it.

For History Buffs: on the way back we passed through Waipapakauri at which, during WW2, the Americans built two 700m concrete airstrips, as the first of many planned because if Australia was invaded by the Japanese, New Zealand was where they were going to withdraw to. Thankfully they were never used as the "Tide of War" turned. After the War the airstrips were broken up and the land put back into farmland.

Cheers

Kiwi Jeff

P.S. Brian - yes this retirement lark is the way to fly !