Another motorcyclist has died

Senior Constable Warren Bunn - All three fatalities involved older men driving big bikes. Photo / file

The police Serious Crash Unit is investigating a fatal motorcycle accident on the Kaitaia Awaroa Rd on Sunday evening. The motorcyclist, 54-year-old Mid North man, who had been reported missing at around 7.45pm, died at the scene.

Emergency services found the crash site just before 8.30pm.

Senior Constable Warren Bunn said he had been riding with a friend when his machine left the road on a right-hand bend, went down a bank and through a fence before coming to rest in trees about six metres below the road, just north of Dysart Rd, on the south side of the Herekino Gorge. The pair had stopped in Herekino, and were continuing north towards Kaitaia.

The other rider stopped on the north side of the gorge to wait for his companion. When he didn't show up he backtracked, and, finding no sign of him, called emergency services. Police, assisted by Herekino residents, carried out a thorough search. Neither the bike nor the rider could be seen from the road, the search ending after a police officer found faint tyre tracks in pine needles beside the road.

Volunteer firefighters from Ahipara and Kaitaia were called out to help recover the body, and the road was closed to traffic between Herekino and the Roma Rd intersection while the Serious Crash Unit examined the scene.

Meanwhile an Ahipara Fire Brigade appliance collided with a cow on the way to the scene, just north of the gorge. Chief Fire Officer Dave Ross said the animal, which walked away from the incident, had stepped out in front of the appliance. It was not badly damaged, but with a broken headlight it was taken back to the station, the crew returning to join the search in another vehicle.

The fatality, the third in Northland involving a motorcyclist this month, took Northland's road toll for the year to date to 10 , and the Far North's to 7. The first of those motorcycle fatalities was at Tutukaka, and the second at Tangoake three days later.

Senior Constable Warren Bunn, of the police Serious Crash Unit said all three motorbike fatalities had involved older men driving big bikes of around 1700-1800cc. The 1730cc cruiser involved in Sunday's accident had been designed with long straight roads in mind, not Northland's unforgiving, twisting back roads.