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I planned to ship my bike (the 2021 R1250GSA that is my “retirement” bike) from Vancouver to Auckland, spend two months riding around New Zealand, then ship across to Sydney and spend another four months doing a lap of Australia. The total estimated cost to ship the bike by boat was $9,000 plus the cost of a Carnet de Passages. Shocked by this price I had a look at buying a bike and thought that might be a better, more economical option. In the meantime, I also thought that six months was a long time to be away as my mom’s mental health was slowly deteriorating so I changed my plan to do New Zealand on its own in 2025 and then Australia in 2026. This made it even more reasonable to buy a bike rather than shipping my own.
My plan was to go to New Zealand from January to March. In September I started looking for used bikes for sale in New Zealand. I found a few older motorbikes similar to bikes I have owned and liked for very reasonable prices. A friend whom Audrey and I met in Africa (see Kenya chapter) now lives in Nelson on the South Island and was willing to help with the purchase, registration, and eventual sale. I then contacted a few BMW motorcycle dealerships and asked if they would be willing to entertain a buy back plan. Experience Motorcycles of Auckland came back and said they would be able to do that and their estimate for the price difference (between buying it and selling it back to them) was very reasonable. Plus, they would take care of the registration and the Warrant of Fitness, so I didn’t need to bother George in Nelson. In November, the perfect motorcycle showed up at Experience Motorcycles, a 2019 BMW R1250GSA, very similar to my retirement bike. John at Experience Motorcycles put it away and I sent a deposit to hold it. Then a few weeks before flying to New Zealand I paid the remainder in full. I owned a motorcycle in New Zealand!
Chapter 1: Arrival and Getting on the Road 
Home / New Zealand | 2025
New Zealand | 2025
Since at least 2016 and probably earlier, Audrey and I had been planning to travel to Australia and New Zealand after retirement. We had decided to do the more difficult travel first, so riding across Mongolia or doing a lap of South America took priority. New Zealand and Australia would be easy, relatively speaking, so we were saving them for dessert. After taking our four year-long leaves of absence we thought that we would take a year to travel to Australia and New Zealand starting in July or August of 2021, after retiring at the end of June. Of course, that all changed in 2020 when Audrey got sick and then passed away in November. Audrey’s instructions before she passed away were crystal clear, “Ekke, your job is to travel out on your motorbike. What else?” But I too decided to do other trips before going to Australia and New Zealand, such as riding across Central America all the way to the end of the road in Panama or joining GlobeRiders for the Muscat to Munich tour. But now, the time had come to finally ride the last continent.I planned to ship my bike (the 2021 R1250GSA that is my “retirement” bike) from Vancouver to Auckland, spend two months riding around New Zealand, then ship across to Sydney and spend another four months doing a lap of Australia. The total estimated cost to ship the bike by boat was $9,000 plus the cost of a Carnet de Passages. Shocked by this price I had a look at buying a bike and thought that might be a better, more economical option. In the meantime, I also thought that six months was a long time to be away as my mom’s mental health was slowly deteriorating so I changed my plan to do New Zealand on its own in 2025 and then Australia in 2026. This made it even more reasonable to buy a bike rather than shipping my own.
My plan was to go to New Zealand from January to March. In September I started looking for used bikes for sale in New Zealand. I found a few older motorbikes similar to bikes I have owned and liked for very reasonable prices. A friend whom Audrey and I met in Africa (see Kenya chapter) now lives in Nelson on the South Island and was willing to help with the purchase, registration, and eventual sale. I then contacted a few BMW motorcycle dealerships and asked if they would be willing to entertain a buy back plan. Experience Motorcycles of Auckland came back and said they would be able to do that and their estimate for the price difference (between buying it and selling it back to them) was very reasonable. Plus, they would take care of the registration and the Warrant of Fitness, so I didn’t need to bother George in Nelson. In November, the perfect motorcycle showed up at Experience Motorcycles, a 2019 BMW R1250GSA, very similar to my retirement bike. John at Experience Motorcycles put it away and I sent a deposit to hold it. Then a few weeks before flying to New Zealand I paid the remainder in full. I owned a motorcycle in New Zealand!
My new bike: a 2019 BMW R1250GSA
Chapter 1: Arrival and Getting on the Road
Chapter 1: Arrival and Getting on the Road