The Long Way Home – East Cape Loop Reflections from a past ride
I left Tauranga before the town had properly woken, the sky still undecided between night and morning. My Multistrada was running perfectly and settled into that familiar rhythm—steady, patient, like it understood more than I did.
It had been a week of noise I recall. Phones, people, Trials and unnecessary expectations placed on me. Too many words and not enough truth in any of them. So I pointed the front wheel toward the East Cape and chose silence instead.
Past Ōpōtiki, the road narrowed and began to lean into the land. The ocean appeared beside me in flashes—steel blue at first, then softening as the light grew. Out here, nothing pretended to be anything else. The sea was just the sea. The road was just the road. It was a relief.
I ride without music, without urgency. Just the bike beneath me and the wind against my chest. Corners come and go, some tight and demanding, others wide and forgiving. Each one asking for my attention, and in giving it, I found something close to peace.
There was a stretch where the road climbed slightly, and the view opened up—endless coastline, the kind that makes you feel small without making you feel insignificant. I rolled off the throttle and let the bike settle, coasting for a moment. These are sme of the moments I have when riding.
I realised, somewhere between one bend and the next, that I hadn’t thought about the people I no longer needed to think about in over an hour. Not properly, anyway. These thoughts try to follow me, clinging on back near town, but they dropped away one by one, unable to keep up. Don't need them to ruin my day.
A lone farmhouse passed on the right. A dog watched me from a distance but didn’t bark. I notice things like that, a Falcon attacking a small flock of sparrows, a fat Tui sitting on a flax bush all fluffed up, a hawk circling above some road kill. Further on, a group of riders came the other way—quick nods exchanged, that unspoken understanding. You’re out here too. I get it, they get it..
By the time I turn, looping back toward home, the day had fully arrived. The light was warm now, settling into the paddocks, stretching shadows long across the road. The bike felt lighter somehow, my thoughts definitely did..
Nothing had really changed. The same problems would be waiting when I got back. The same conversations, the same expectations. But they didn’t feel as heavy now.
Sometimes that was all the road could offer—not answers, not solutions. Just space. Enough space for things to settle back into their proper shape.
I rolled back into Tauranga later that afternoon, engine ticking as it cooled. I sat there a moment longer than I needed to, hands resting on the bars, listening to the quiet return.
The long way home hadn’t fixed anything.
But it had reminded me how to carry it. It had reminded me to matter to the ones that matter, the honest and loyal friends that make the fabric of my life meaningful.
