Right leg pumping, Czech scooter rider Miroslav Machota covered the length of 90 Mile in just over five hours.

That was after his wild ride down the serpentine curves of the road south of Cape Reinga.

And it came slightly before a downhill straight allowed Machota, 32, to hit his top speed of 75 km/hr.

With support crew Tomas Capek and Jakub Michael, the building engineer's New Zealand adventure is a bold ambition and a chance to experience the length - and breadth - of the country.


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With a 3000km trip planned, Machota is not taking the most direct route.

Machota and crew, who follow in a back-up van with spare scooters, stopped by the Northern Advocate in Whangārei on their journey south.

If yesterday's trip went according to plan, it will have ended in the pub at Puhoi where the trio were hoping for Czech beer on tap.

Machota spoke of scootering giving "a sense of freedom, of elation and energy". This latest venture is a second major fundraising expedition and follows a two-week, 2000km journey from the UK to Czechoslovakia.

The money raised on that trip was used to build a bathroom in the home of an intellectually disabled Czech man.

This time, it goes towards school transport for a boy called Adam, 8, from his village of Tisa, whose mental development froze at age 5.

Machota's scooters are a world away from the standard, hard-wheeled models found in department stores.


Especially designed by Czech company Kostka, they look more like bicycles without pedals. At the point the seat usually appears, the scooter frame dives to the ground to a board for the rider's foot.

The model, and its bike-style tyres, have seen Machota navigate metal roads along with the sands of Northland's longest beach.

It was that stretch down 90 Mile Beach on which Machota's tall frame unloaded its power to propel him to speeds greater than that which the support crew were willing to drive.

The trio expect to arrive in Bluff around January 10.