Have you been planning a trip to New Zealand, but the rising costs of airfares
and everything else around you making you think twice?
Well, we have been listening to our clients feedback and advice and come up
with a package that will help you achieve your dreams-
Go here for the details: http://guidedtours.gotournz.com/SIspecial

Coming to tour New Zealand with us in the 2008-09 Season? Check out these deals from Air New Zealand for Oct - Dec 2008, and Feb 2009 (return airfares from US$1449):

Happy Hunting....

Cheers,

John

Al Kinney, a friend and client who toured with us a few years back just sent us this classic piece from Hunter Thompson.
Thanks Al.... Now, I'm going out for a ride.... :-)

Cheers,
John

---------
You've probably all seen this before, but it's been too long since I have, so I send it along to brighten your day…

Al Kinney


Song of the Sausage Creature
by Hunter S. Thompson


There are some things nobody needs in this world, and a bright-red, hunch-back, warp-speed 900cc cafe racer is one of them - but I want one anyway, and on some days I actually believe I need one. That is why they are dangerous.

Everybody has fast motorcycles these days. Some people go 150 miles an hour on two-lane blacktop roads, but not often. There are too many oncoming trucks and too many radar cops and too many stupid animals in the way. You have to be a little crazy to ride these super-torque high-speed crotch rockets anywhere except a racetrack - and even there, they will scare the whimpering **** out of you... There is, after all, not a pig's eye worth of difference between going head-on into a Peterbilt or sideways into the bleachers. On some days you get what you want, and on others, you get what you need.

When Cycle World called me to ask if I would road-test the new Harley Road King, I got uppity and said I'd rather have a Ducati superbike. It seemed like a chic decision at the time, and my friends on the superbike circuit got very excited. "Hot damn," they said. "We will take it to the track and blow the bastards away."

"Balls," I said. "Never mind the track. The track is for punks. We are Road People. We are Cafe Racers."

The Cafe Racer is a different breed, and we have our own situations. Pure speed in sixth gear on a 5000-foot straightaway is one thing, but pure speed in third gear on a gravel-strewn downhill ess-turn is quite another.

But we like it. A thoroughbred Cafe Racer will ride all night through a fog storm in freeway traffic to put himself into what somebody told him was the ugliest and tightest decreasing-radius turn since Genghis Khan invented the corkscrew.

. I still feel a shudder in my spine every time I see a picture of a Vincent Black Shadow, or when I walk into a public restroom and hear crippled men whispering about the terrifying Kawasaki Triple... I have visions of compound femur-fractures and large black men in white hospital suits holding me down on a gurney while a nurse called "Bess" sews the flaps of my scalp together with a stitching drill.

The motorcycle business was the last straw. It had to be the work of my enemies, or people who wanted to hurt me. It was the vilest kind of bait, and they knew I would go for it.

Of course. You want to cripple the bastard? Send him a 130-mph cafe-racer. And include some license plates, he'll think it's a streetbike. He's queer for anything fast.

Which is true. I have been a connoisseur of fast motorcycles all my life. I bought a brand-new 650 BSA Lightning when it was billed as "the fastest motorcycle ever tested by Hot Rod magazine." I have ridden a 500-pound Vincent through traffic on the Ventura Freeway with burning oil on my legs and run the Kawa 750 Triple through Beverly Hills at night with a head full of acid... I have ridden with Sonny Barger and smoked weed in biker bars with Jack Nicholson, Grace Slick, Ron Zigler and my infamous old friend, Ken Kesey, a legendary Cafe Racer.

Some people will tell you that slow is good - and it may be, on some days - but I am here to tell you that fast is better. I've always believed this, in spite of the trouble it's caused me. Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast motorcycles, Bubba....

Which we had - no doubt about that. The Ducati people in New Jersey had opted, for some reasons of their own, to send me the 900ss-sp for testing - rather than their 916 crazy-fast, state-of-the-art superbike track-racer. It was far too fast, they said - and prohibitively expensive - to farm out for testing to a gang of half-mad Colorado cowboys who think they're world-class Cafe Racers.

The Ducati 900 is a finely engineered machine. My neighbors called it beautiful and admired its racing lines. The nasty little bugger looked like it was going 90 miles an hour when it was standing still in my garage.

I was hunched over the tank like a person diving into a pool that got emptied yesterday. Whacko! Bashed on the concrete bottom, flesh ripped off, a Sausage Creature with no teeth, ****ed-up for the rest of its life.

We all love Torque, and some of us have taken it straight over the high side from time to time - and there is always Pain in that... But there is also Fun, the deadly element, and Fun is what you get when you screw this monster on. BOOM! Instant take-off, no screeching or squawking around like a fool with your teeth clamping down on our tongue and your mind completely empty of everything but fear.

No. This bugger digs right in and shoots you straight down the pipe, for good or ill.

On my first take-off, I hit second gear and went through the speed limit on a two-lane blacktop highway full of ranch traffic. By the time I went up to third, I was going 75 and the tach was barely above 4000 rpm....

And that's when it got its second wind. From 4000 to 6000 in third will take you from 75 mph to 95 in two seconds - and after that, Bubba, you still have fourth, fifth, and sixth. Ho, ho.

I never got to sixth gear, and I didn't get deep into fifth. This is a shameful admission for a full-bore Cafe Racer, but let me tell you something, old sport: This motorcycle is simply too goddamn fast to ride at speed in any kind of normal road traffic unless you're ready to go straight down the centerline with your nuts on fire and a silent scream in your throat.

When aimed in the right direction at high speed, though, it has unnatural capabilities. This I unwittingly discovered as I made my approach to a sharp turn across some railroad tracks, saw that I was going way too fast and that my only chance was to veer right and screw it on totally, in a desperate attempt to leapfrog the curve by going airborne.

It was a bold and reckless move, but it was necessary. And it worked: I felt like Evel Knievel as I soared across the tracks with the rain in my eyes and my jaws clamped together in fear. I tried to spit down on the tracks as I passed them, but my mouth was too dry... I landed hard on the edge of the road and lost my grip for a moment as the Ducati began fishtailing crazily into oncoming traffic. For two or three seconds I came face to face with the Sausage Creature....

But somehow the brute straightened out. I passed a schoolbus on the right and got the bike under control long enough to gear down and pull off into an abandoned gravel driveway where I stopped and turned off the engine. My hands had seized up like claws and the rest of my body was numb. I felt nauseous and I cried for my mama, but nobody heard, then I went into a trance for 30 or 40 seconds until I was finally able to light a cigarette and calm down enough to ride home. I was too hysterical to shift gears, so I went the whole way in first at 40 miles an hour.

Whoops! What am I saying? Tall stories, ho, ho... We are motorcycle people; we walk tall and we laugh at whatever's funny. We **** on the chests of the Weird....

But when we ride very fast motorcycles, we ride with immaculate sanity. We might abuse a substance here and there, but only when it's right. The final measure of any rider's skill is the inverse ratio of his preferred Traveling Speed to the number of bad scars on his body. It is that simple: If you ride fast and crash, you are a bad rider. And if you are a bad rider, you should not ride motorcycles.

The emergence of the superbike has heightened this equation drastically. Motorcycle technology has made such a great leap forward. Take the Ducati. You want optimum cruising speed on this bugger? Try 90mph in fifth at 5500 rpm - and just then, you see a bull moose in the middle of the road. WHACKO. Meet the Sausage Creature.

Or maybe not: The Ducati 900 is so finely engineered and balanced and torqued that you *can* do 90 mph in fifth through a 35-mph zone and get away with it. The bike is not just fast - it is *extremely* quick and responsive, and it *will* do amazing things... It is like riding a Vincent Black Shadow, which would outrun an F-86 jet fighter on the take-off runway, but at the end, the F-86 would go airborne and the Vincent would not, and there was no point in trying to turn it. WHAMO! The Sausage Creature strikes again.

There is a fundamental difference, however, between the old Vincents and the new breed of superbikes. If you rode the Black Shadow at top speed for any length of time, you would almost certainly die. That is why there are not many life members of the Vincent Black Shadow Society. The Vincent was like a bullet that went straight; the Ducati is like the magic bullet in Dallas that went sideways and hit JFK and the Governor of Texas at the same time.

It was impossible. But so was my terrifying sideways leap across the railroad tracks on the 900sp. The bike did it easily with the grace of a fleeing tomcat. The landing was so easy I remember thinking, goddamnit, if I had screwed it on a little more I could have gone a lot farther.

Maybe this is the new Cafe Racer macho. My bike is so much faster than yours that I dare you to ride it, you lame little turd. Do you have the balls to ride this BOTTOMLESS PIT OF TORQUE?

That is the attitude of the new-age superbike freak, and I am one of them. On some days they are about the most fun you can have with your clothes on. The Vincent just killed you a lot faster than a superbike will. A fool couldn't ride the Vincent Black Shadow more than once, but a fool can ride a Ducati 900 many times, and it will always be a bloodcurdling kind of fun. That is the Curse of Speed which has plagued me all my life. I am a slave to it. On my tombstone they will carve, "IT NEVER GOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME."
Cheers,
John

Check out these new specials from Air New Zealand from the US to NZ return - from only US$1098.

Not a bad deal if the dates suit...

The guys at our sister company Thunderbike Powersports (www.thunderbike.co.nz) recommended I take a out a Moto Morini Corsaro 1200 demonstrator last week. I love big lusty Italian V twins so it was an easy sell. With Graeme from Thunderbike on Tbike's KTM Superduke demo, and friend Shane on his O6 Triumph Sprint 1050 with set off for a quick fang through the Moutere Hills, to the West of Nelson. We're enjoying a fantastic spell of weather this November, and the weather was perfect.

The Corsaro was a delightful surprise - booming exhaust note, smooth, relentless "fat" power everywhere, great handling, fab brakes, compliant yet firm suspension, great riding position. It was perfect for the twisting hilly backroads surrounding Nelson.

In short, I want one - and I have ridden most offerings from other manufacturers in this naked sports bike genre.

If you get a chance to ride one a Corsaro, grab it with both hands. If you're contemplating buying a naked big bore scratcher, make sure you test ride one of these before parting with your cash.


Siezure later,

John.

The Burt Munro Memorial weekend continues with a feast of racing for the motorcycle enthusiasts, a day of racing at Wyndham, with Super Motard, BEARS , pre '62 , pre '72 and girder fork equipped motorcycles.

The competition was fierce and the large crowd enthused by the array of spectacular machinery- not to be missed!

Make sure you book for next November now - space is limited.

Cheers from Wyndham, Southland

Ian

.

The Burt Munro ( World's Fastest Indian Tour) has been a huge success here in Invercargill, home of Burt Munro and New Zealand's Southern most city.

I've just been browsing around Air New Zealand's US website and found this deal below - might be worth checking out if you're thinking of a motorcycle tour of New Zealand with GoTourNZ.com just as it starts to get cold/icy up in there. :-)

Flights start at US$1272 per person. Check it out here:

http://www.airnewzealand.com/airfares_offers/web_specials_flights/flights/nz_from_usa_949_25_05_06.htm

Happy hunting..

Seizure later

John

Nov 6, 2007: Wanaka to Queenstown

We woke to an absolute cracker of a day - the sky was almost cloudless.

For those that were into it, we went for a good physical workout with a run up Mt Iron on the outskirts of Wanaka. This peak overlooks Wanaka township and offers spectacular 360 deg views of Wanaka, the Cardrona Valley, and the Alps.

After a hearty breakfast at the Lodge we rode to the Warbirds museum at the airport for a view of the machines of yesteryear. Then it was on the bikes for the great ride up the Cardrona Valley and over the Crown Range to Queenstown. The views are simply breathtaking - this is a "must do" road for any motorcyclist.

Cheers,

John.

Nov 5, 2007: Franz Josef to Wanaka.

After a damp Day 3 riding from Paroa to Franz Josef, the weather came right in a big way - just what we were hoping for, as the ride to Wanaka is one of the best rides in the world. We woke this morning to a perfectly clear day, so it was into the helicopter for a stunning 45 minute flight up to Mt Cook and a landing in the neve of Franz Josef Glacier. After breakfast, we hit the road for Haast for 3 hours of exhilarating jetboating up a real wilderness river deep into the Alps.


Then it was back on the bikes for the fantastic 2 hour ride over Haast Pass, along the sides of lakes Wanaka and Hawea, and on to Wanaka. I truly believe this to be one of the best rides you'll find anywhere on The Planet - fantastic alpine scenery, twisting, rising, falling, grippy roads....and no traffic.

A long day, but everyone was buzzed. we capped it off with a great meal, some excellent local Pinot Noir....and a soak in the spa for some, watching the stars.

A great day!

Nov 2, 2007.Location: Hanmer Springs.

Our November Best of the Best 14 day South Island tour is on the road and we're off to a great start. Though we're only on Day 2, the weather has been fantastic and the entire group is having a blast.

We spent a the first day pootling around Nelson and Golden Bay getting used to the bikes and riding on the correct side of the road. The views over Golden and Tasman Bays from the top of the Takaka Hill were fantastic.

Today we rode from Nelson to the thermal resort town of Hanmer Springs via Lewis Pass. The roads were almost deserted, and the clean mountain air and sunlight shining through the canopy of the beech forests were great.

On this tour we have a party of 6 one of whom, Laura Flynn, won a free tour with us at the BMWMOA Rally in Burlington, Vermont last year. Each year at the BMWMOA rally in the US, we give away 2 free tour prize - if you live in the US make sure you get along to the MOA rally to be in with a chance for yourself.

I'll post more as the trip progresses.

Safe riding,

John & Ian

Due to many enquiries for a North Island only tour, we have created a special custom Best of Best Format tour that will show you all the highlights of the North Island - this is a limited opportunity to tour in a small group on a very special layout, so if you are interested please email Ian (IanFitz@GoTourNZ.com) as soon as you can- time is of the essence! The tour will run February 20 - March 4 2008

Believe it, or not... :-)




Believe it or not also, we have Triumph's Rocket 3 available for you to take your tour of New Zealand with GoTourNZ.com on.

If you like performance cruisers, you owe it to yourself to go for a test ride on a Rocket. You'll have trouble wiping the smile from your face.

Just make sure you're not pointed at anything or following too close when you open the tap. These things don't accelerate like a normal motorcycle - that car in front of you will seems to hurtle back toward you, like someone pulling a carpet from under your feet.

Enjoy the video..

Seizure later

John

I've been looking forward to spending some time on one of the new additions to our fleet, KTM's '07 990 Adventure. I finally got my chance last week, and loved nearly every minute on it. "Nearly" every minute? Well, at 5' 6", and with the 990's seat height and a fully laden bike, there were a few heart-in-mouth moments on full lock up and downhill turns. One of these days I'm going to invent a bike that automatically lowers its' ride height at low speeds. As soon as I have my next spare nano-second.

Steve Butler and his partner Taryn Ellis from Be-Still riding another 990 (www.be-still.co.nz), my wife Jo (riding her Transalp 650) and I took off for New Plymouth on the North Island's West Coast. N.P. is a citý just in the Northern side of the big outward bulge halfway up the North Is. We covered about 1500km over the 5 days we were away and had an absolute blast.

Here's a 1 min 36 sec video clip of the two Katooms in rush hour traffic in New Zealand.. :-)

Tours for the next season are filling fast - the 2008 Fun and Funky Tour is fully booked, and the November 2007 Burt Munro Tour is almost full. If you are planning a date and want us to hold spaces for you, contact us soon - first in first served!

From time to time you'll find some great air travel specials on Air New Zealand's website. We appreciate you're busy too, so we keep in eye on the specials ourselves. If we find anything hot, we'll post it on here, or email our client list.

This latest from Air New Zealand covers is for the travel period commencing 15 Aug - 30 Sep 07 & 28 Oct - 01 Dec 07, and the sale remain open until 30 Sept 2007. It allows 3 stopovers in New Zealand, in which Nelson is included, so the fare includes your internal transfers, which is pretty good.

I just plugged in San Francisco to Nelson, New Zealand return for a December trip, and it came back with a fare of US$1421 - not bad at all, when you consider the the Auckland- Nelson return flights are worth around US$300.

So if you're thinking of traveling to New Zealand in November or December, and can book before Sept 30, this is a great deal.

Get yer mouse clicking!

http://www.airnewzealand.com/airfares_offers/web_specials_flights/flights/discover_new_zealand_usd898_15sep07.htm

In just a few days last week, the Kiwi dollar fell from a high of US$ 0.82, down to 0.68, before rebounding to US$0.72, where it seems to be settled again, at least in the short term.
If you're thinking of touring New Zealand next year that's good news - your upcoming vacation just became 15-18% cheaper, depending upon your currency. For us Kiwis heading overseas for our vacations, things just became quite a bit pricier. :-(
The economic gurus have been telling us for sometime that the Kiwi Dollar is vastly overvalued, and needs to, and will definitely fall. Because of the attractive rates of interest available in New Zealand, a result of the way the NZ Government manages our inflation, overseas investors buy Kiwi Dollars, driving the value of the NZD up against other currencies. The rapid correction in the value of our currency will make NZ exporters and those of us in the tourism industry a bit happier.
Predicting the exchange rates is an imperfect science though, and no-one seems game to say whether they expect the Kiwi dollar to rise back up or fall further. The bottom line is, right now, make hay while the sun shines.. :-)
If you're already booked to tour with us this upcoming season, or have been delaying your decision, now's a great time to take advantage of the fall by perhaps paying for your tour in full while the Kiwi dollar is down.

We're proud to be a totally New Zealand owned and operated business and unlike other operators, ALL tours are guided exclusively by the company owners and founders, John & Ian Fitzwater.

Our motorcycle touring vacations in New Zealand are second to none. Our aim is not simply to provide you with the best motorcycle tour you'll ever have - we aim to give you the best holiday or vacation you'll ever have!

We think that too many NZ motorcycle tours stick to the main routes and tourist towns, and totally miss the 'real New Zealand'. If you want to see neon then you can do that at home, right?? Our touring vacations visit some out-of-the-way areas that are often missed by other motorbike tour companies because of the herd-like size of their groups - just check out our itineraries , we bet you'll have trouble finding some of our stopovers on your map! In fact even a lot of Kiwis don't know about these locations. You'll still get to see the main sightseeing attractions - the glaciers, the mountains, the glacial lakes and rugged but beautiful coastlines.

This TV ad for the Toyota HiLux from a few years ago really does a great job of capturing both the Kiwi spirit and sense of humour.

No words of explanation are really necessary.

And if you don't get it, you can just Bugger Off!

Click To Play

The BMW MOA rally held in Wisconsin was a huge success with a great attendance level - Ian, John, Joanne and Jesse attended the rally and met up with many old friends and hopefully have made some new ones - there was a lot of interest in touring New Zealand by many people from all over the US.

Two lucky people won a 12 day Best Value tour of New Zealand by attending our seminars at the rally, and we will be posting their pics and details on the blog soon.

The New Zealand dollar has fallen 5c this past week against the US and other currencies, so if you are planning a trip to New Zealand this year, now is the time to book! Tourism figures from all over New Zealand are showing signs of another huge year from visitors to our country - so do think about planning ahead.

There is limited room on some tours through November, January and February - so c'mon over !! Email Ian for more details....

Winter has finally arrived in Godzone, with snow covering the peaks of some
of the mountains surrounding us with the subsequent drop in temperature arriving
also.

We are now focusing our sights on our marketing trip to the US and heading
off to summer in the Northern Hemisphere this July - Ian, Jesse, John and Joanne
are heading to Wisconsin to attend the BMWMOA rally at West Bend which takes
place July 12th -15th.

If you are planning to be there, or would like to meet us, we would really
appreciate that - we will have a booth at the rally site and be doing two seminars
to tell potential travellers to New Zealand about how they can do this and why
they should be touring with us... as well, if you come to our seminars you have
the chance to win one of two free 12 day tours that we are giving away at the
rally!

Tours are filling fast, so if you are planning a visit this coming season then
lets get talking as you will need to plan ahead, especially flights and accommodation..

Hope to hear from you soon...

We have made some changes to the new seasons tour packages this year, particularly to our very popular "Best Value".
In addition to these changes we have a special "theme tour " planned for November - we have called this the "Burt Munro Memorial Tour"