The 2005 International Rally in Taupo was attended by around 120 WIMA members with partners and family. Attendees were from Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom and other European countries.
Yvonne Forrest from WIMA New Zealand wrote this report about the rally, with additonal information from Åsa Öhqvist WIMA Sweden.
The idea for WIMA NZ to hold an international rally, came about when three of the then current committee members were attending the 2000 rally in Australia. Having chatted with a couple of the Aussie rally organisers, we decided that we could hold one in New Zealand – in five years’ time. Our reasoning was that five years should give us plenty of time to organise it.
Taupo was chosen as the location, as it was in the middle of the North Island, and had a suitable holiday park with plenty of space, and a range of accommodation types to suit all. It was also close to a variety of cultural activities that we could incorporate into the rally to give it a real New Zealand flavour.
The rally started with a visit to Warrakei Terraces where we were treated to a haka – a traditional Maori greeting and challenge – plus evening meal, a Hangi which consists of food being cooked in the ground on hot stones. We were also able to walk around the village.
Other events included a trip to Orakei Korako thermal valley where boiling mud pools, geysers plus other thermal pools abound; the Agrodome in Rotorua to learn about sheep, watch them being shorn, plus a chance for our guests to shear a sheep themselves. There was a visit to the gondola and the luge, plus a day’s ride around the mountains taking in a number of historic places and sites and showing off the Central Plateau of New Zealand.
On the final day of the rally, various games were held including helmet toss, a cross-dressing challenge, egg and spoon race, a motorcycle slow race and obstacle course. The day also included an impromptu event suggested by the guys. Each of them auctioned themselves off to wash a WIMA member’s bike; the highest bidder won with all proceeds going to the India Street Kids Project.
To round it all off, our final dinner was a typical Kiwi barbecue.
Åsa Öhqvist remembers: this was my first international rally outside Sweden. I had joined the organisation the previous autumn and worked at the Swedish international rally and I must admit that it was the prospect of travelling abroad and taking part in such events that pulled me into WIMA. Arriving in New Zealand was so exotic; the rally site was beautiful and the excursion to see the steaming mud at Orakei Korako and the rides around the mountain of Ruapehu were amazingly mindboggling. It was only two of us from Sweden, Charlotta our vice president and I, and we were met by Tina Hartung from Towanda Women, and we joined up with our small group of riders who were to tour all around New Zealand after the rally. New Zealand is an amazing place for motorcycling and WIMA New Zealand and husbands were such a friendly lot and made us all feel so welcome.
One of the highlights for me was a spontaneous ride to Napier together with a couple of the New Zealand members. It was simply just a ride there and back for lunch – but the roads were amazing, and I learned that cc is nothing compared to skills as I was left in the dust behind a 250cc (in Sweden a 650cc is a small motorbike, no one even rides 250cc). Another refreshing insight was to meet their president… who rode a scooter. Where I come from, a scooter is not a motorbike regardless how big it is. Swedes are narrow minded like that, or at least they were back then. For me, WIMA has been a continuous learning experience about other cultures and different references, and it all started in New Zealand. I also learned that pumpkin can be a part of any dish, even pizza.
