Adventure Bike Rider

So why after watching 10 minutes of Henry Cole had I lost the will to live and explore.

Am I the only one, a tad...an incy wincy tiny bit disappointed.

No, I only watch 5 minutes of it, if that. Then had a beer to cheer myself up...

I too was disappointed with it.
My daughter lives in NZ (south island) and her partner is an avid biker. When I last visited, I asked him about trail riding in NZ & his reponse was there was actually very few legal trails across the landscape due to:
a) NZ is serious about its conservation policies
b) most of the land belongs to someone and they don't want trail riders scaring their sheep
They don't have the history of roman roads or pilgrims that we have in the UK or Europe that created most of the trails we have access to.

From what I saw, the guy on tv simply rode on "normal" roads. Once you get off the main routes in NZ, they simply have miles of gravel roads. There are so many remote areas in NZ, you don't have to go "off road" to be alone.

TBH, when I did a tour of the south island, I was fairly glad I was in a car.
The distances between civilization can be long and it was hard enough keeping the midges (sand flies) out of the car, never mind a helmet!

However, it is one of the most stunning countries I have ever visited and I will be going back....

It's on my sky box to watch - maybe I won't bother!

Only one small section of motorway, most of the roads are our single track "A" standard and then its gravel roads which are highly maintained. There are only 4.5 million Kiwi's and their country is the same size as ours. Yes there are long distances between towns and the speed limit is 100kph and is strictly enforced.
But the place is superb to tour around.

cheers Spud

Ok so why are the photo's not loading ? cheers Spud

there is some "proper" dirt biking to be had in new zealand but it's a lot about who you know and what you know as most of it is on forestry or private land... and as we are still a pretty young country most of the "byways" as they would be here are still actually functioning roads and so are maintained and graded gravel roads. we don't yet have the main road network that exists in the uk for these to degrade to the extent that byways have over here.

plus there's always the firebreaks to ride...