There and Back Again

OK then long time no blog, but I’ve just come back (Not so much just anymore...I’ve been working on this post for over a month now) from one of the best holidays ever so I thought I’d blog\skyte about it....warning this is a big one. Over the last 30+ years I’ve been getting annoyed by dodgy foreigners telling me about how they’ve seen more of my country than I have. Plus since I had my sweetheart still being looked after by the effervescent Karen, I had a sweet sweet ride on which to check out said country.

Unfortunately due to me not understanding the concept of international time zones I landed in Auckland at midnight instead of the planned 10pm…Luckily J was just as excited as me about catching up on 7 odd years of assorted stories, so he picked me up from the airport and had a few cold ones waiting, even if he had to work first thing Fri and I had to be at Karen’s at 7am to pickup sweetness.

I better clear something up now that has been causing some confusion in my story telling lately...My friend Jared commonly referred to a J is my old mate from Dick Smiths who married Arina the other week. Then there’s my mate Jared commonly referred to as Pie, who is my mate from the Royal and SunAlliance/Promina days and flatting together in Sydney and Melbourne. He, I can’t see getting married anytime soon. Glad that’s cleared up...there will be a test later.

So with a fair bit of head scratching and several coffees Mike (Karen’s betrothed) and I sorted out the best configuration for the tail and saddle bags, which when I was about to pull over 4,000Km in the next few weeks seemed like something that I should take a few minutes to work out. Then it was just a matter of photos, thanks and hugs (With Karen not Mike...we had only just met) and I was on the road by 8:30...just in time for rush hour. Now back when I used to live in Auckland I was more than happy nipping up between the lanes and laughing at the silly people in cars going 5km/hr but with the saddle bags on and me not riding for nearly a year I was stuck puttering along with the tin lids! Not too much latter I pulled into a road-trips best friend and worst enemy...The Gas station, just in time to see a dude on a sick Harley pulling out on his way to Wellington...I’d have to catch up with him in a few days.

That first ride; down the motorway, over the plains (With a quick stop off for my first of many Kiwi meat pies...steak and mushroom of cause), the Karangahake gorge and then out to Tauranga. The roads I grew up on and a great way to reacquaint myself with ZZR. Plus the first casualty of the trip, a rain cover for one of the saddle bags. Trying to navigate Tauranga (Not the biggest city in the world) for a great lunch with Aunty Rona and Uncle Keith then out to spend an awesome night with my sister and the rest of the Brown crew...Note to self for America: I need some type of handlebar mounted GPS...Not for the open road (That defeats the idea of a road trip, but for city (or large village) navigating.

Saturday and I was in for one of the best rides of the trip. It started off a bit shaky with me getting lost once again in Tauranga looking for a petrol station. But once I had a full tank and the sunnies sitting right I had the fun blat across to Whananui with White Island smoking away on my left shoulder whist keeping an eye out for Nessy’s cousin. In Gisborne I was planning on having a coffee with Jol, an old family friend from my Paeroa days. So when I got to Opotiki I sent him a txt telling him I’d be seeing him in a few hours, only to get a reply from some guy saying that he thought I had the wrong number...which was strange since he signed the txt ‘Jol’??? I didn’t have time to sort that out then as I was plunging into the Waioeke Gorge. Happy Days! About 100Km of beautifully flowing corners... This is where I had to pull to the side of the road every 20min or so to look at the country side, since in a gorge of that magnitude fun you are focused on the 100-200m in front of your nose and little else. Then after coasting into the Gas station in Makaraka (The only time this trip I used the reserve tank. 250km range is sweet) I convinced Jol that he did in fact know me and popped into his place for a coffee and to meet his family. But I wasn’t finished with my day’s ride and still fully pumped from the ride through the gorge I set out for Napier. All was going well until just after Wairoa, where I met a storm front. Now rain doesn’t really worry me all that much, sure it’s slightly uncomfortable but once you’ve increased ya braking distances, riding isn’t too different and last time I checked I wasn’t made of sugar so I’m not about to melt. But what does suck is wind, especially on a small bike with large fearings, and you get a lot of wind at storm fronts. So by the time I rolled into Napier, just on 6pm, my muscles were quite stiff and I’d run through my swear-word lexicon several times cursing the wind, big trucks and anything else that took my fancy. Both my mood and aches were quickly fixed by the spa tub in the hotel and a few frothies with the euro backpacker chicks in the bar next door. After a late night wander around Napier I decided I really liked the place with all the old art deco buildings...A note to Christchurch; you can make this whole earthquake thing work for you. What I realised I didn’t like was the dirty ginger mo I was growing on my upper lip, causing me to do a double take every time I walked past a mirror. Plus I now kinda understand why girls get angry when us boys talk to their chests from time to time, as quite a few ladies spoke to my lip and not my eyes...I said I kinda understand, I’m still going to do it...I recommend doing what I did and consider it a compliment to the lushness of my moustache.

Sunday rose threateningly overcast, and not a little blowy, as I made the run down to Welling-town. Firstly I kept getting distracted by quite a substantial snow capped mountain range off my right shoulder...where did that come from, as I don’t remember learning about them as a child, but surely I would have heard about them if they had popped up over the last 15 odd years? I then had a semi magical moment just outside of Masterton. After riding for several hours on unfamiliar roads under ominous skies with the wind trying it’s hardest to throw me into oncoming traffic I was coming into a part of NZ I had known quite well in 1996-98 (Even if it was rather fuzzy). Just as I left the hills and got onto the home turf of the Masterton Plains the wind died and the clouds threw a pillar of sunlight onto me, warming me to my soul...You try riding for 3 days with nothing but the wind and road noise for company and trust me you’ll have a few “Magical moments”

Before I could get onto the real home turf of Wellington I had to cross the Rimataka pass...this is one section of road that the rose tinted glasses of memory had definitely messed with. With the wind running up the Hutt valley and through the gorge it tries to blow you across the narrow road and over the cliff instead of pushing you into the rock wall on your side of the road. And just for fun NZ Roads had decided to rip up the last 20 or so kilometres as you’re coming down the hill. Now metal roads are workable when you’re going uphill as gravity helps you out a great deal, but going downhill....gravity is a b&%ch! So I’m puttering along at 10-20km/hr downhill coming up to the left hand corner, ease off the throttle even more and turn in....unfortunately my bike seems to be enjoying going straight so decided to ignore me. Luckily the oncoming traffic saw what was happening and stopped, as well as there being a substantial mound of gravel between the edge of the road and the cliff top. About 20 metres after the corner from hell there was the construction site where they park the diggers, so I pulled in there and had a cigarette whist my hands and the rest of me stopped shaking.

I then had a good look around my old stomping ground of Upper Hutt, Trentham and Heretaunga before heading into Wellington to find the hotel and Jared. Jared had already checked into the hotel but for some reason had not put his bike in the car park (We’ll get to that later). We had a good stroll around the downtown ending up at an old watering hole (When they believed my fake ID) of The Boatshed. A few cheekies later Jared finally decided to pop the bike in the garage, but the keys where in the hotel room so I stayed in the room working out where to go for dinner while Pie parked the bike. All too soon he was back in the room swearing like the angry sailor, what had happened was he had forgotten his jacket that had his Harley’s engine immobiliser key in it. So as he was putting the ignition key back in his pocket it had slipped and gone down a drainage grate. I popped down to help the guy, and try not to laugh in his face. To put the photo in context Jared is standing in about an inch of sludge, feeling for a key with his toes and with runoff water up to his navel...I’m not sure if I would have been able to smile like that. 40min later we concluded that the key was gone and moved onto plan B. With the Interislander ferry office only open in office hours there was no way to talk to them before our 7am sailing. The emergency lock smiths weren’t much more help, when I finally managed to get one on the phone (I was doing the calling since Jared really needed a shower) he laughed and then explained that either he would have the key on file in the office at 9am tomorrow or we would need to get a key sent from the states or we could install a brand new universal ignition chamber...none of these options would allow the Harley to be on the next morning’s ferry. In the style of Top Gear I decided to leave Pie in Wellington and hope you could catch me up down the road somewhere...Don’t look at me like that, this is a manly bike road trip not a Sunday School outing.

Another drizzly Wellington Monday morn leaving on the ferry, hoping Jared could sort everything out whist trying not to punch one of the 80 odd school children on the ferry (Couldn’t they have been locked on their school buses down in the bowels of the ship or something?) Once I got to Blenheim (Yes I took a wrong turn) I gave Jared a call and found he had got the bike sorted by 10am and would be on the 1pm ferry so would catch up with me at Tineke’s that night just outside of Motueka. The tricky part was finding Tineke’s, but once found I had a great afternoon catching up on 10 odd years, meeting her great family and then having a fantastic fresh organic dinner.

Tuesday was an early start (There’s no such thing as a sleep-in with a 5 year old in the house...Fair enough it’s her house!) which was needed as we had the biggest day on the road ahead of us. Firstly over the Takaka valley Hwy...Check out that road. Then up to check out the Pupu springs, one of the largest fresh water springs in the world (I didn’t realise that there were salt water springs). We had a wicked early lunch at the Mussel Inn in Onekaka before heading back to Motueka. Now the big run down through Murchison (For a place in the South Island that I heard about as a kid I expected more than just a one horse village) on to Reefton (See my comments about Murchison) then rolled into Greymouth, literally rolled as Jared’s classic fuel tank was limiting his range to only 150Km. We found a cool little pub with rooms above and some of the most trustworthy locals ever. When we turned up there was 1 barmaid (I want to say her name was Terri) looking after the TAB bar, (Betting bar for people not in the know) the local bar and the hotel all by herself, so she asked if we’d mind waiting a bit for the rooms, we explained that if she setup a tab and poured us a couple of pints she could take as long as she needed to sort out our rooms. Multiple pints later, Terri popped over to say she could show us the rooms, by now we had 2 piles of assorted crap surrounding us. 1 of bags, helmets and jackets etc on the floor beside us and another on the table top of wallets, top end smart phones and what turned out to be a heck of a lot of change shrapnel. As we started collecting all this Terri laughed at us saying “You boys really are from Auckland aren’t you?”

“Bugger off sweetheart I’m from Paeroa!”

“You can leave all that stuff here. No one’s going to touch it”

Apprehensively we left our stuff at the table (I might of grabbed my wallet and phone when Terri wasn’t looking) and went to check the very serviceable rooms. As we got back downstairs Terri asked what we wanted for dinner. Now for some reason I had decided that Greymouth (On the west coast) was famous for its Crayfish and Kaikoura (on the east coast) was famous for its Whitebait even though I knew from a lot of experience in the North Island that Crays are found on the East and Whitebait are on the West. So when I asked for a Cray Terri got yet another chance to laugh in my face and explain that Greymouth was all about the Whitebait. So I had a couple of Whitebait fritters while Pie ordered one of the best Fish and Chips dinners I’ve ever seen. Anyone ever heard of Blue Nose Fish? The only Blue Nose I know of is the Blue Nose Dolphin but if that’s what he had, Dolphin is like the best sea meat ever!! It wasn’t until a few days later and we were going through the bills that I realised how well I’d been scammed, as my Whitebait meal was around $45 which I’d be OK with in Melbourne but considering Jared’s Dolphin and chips only set him back $15 I had been taken to the cleaners.

Wednesday was going to be the shortest ride of the trip, which was a lucky as it was WET! I know I said earlier that I don’t care about getting wet but barrowing along at 110km when it’s only 15°C can be VERY cold (Hey, it’s my blog so I can change my opinion whenever I want to). We shivered into Hokitika to attempt to dry out and warn up in greenstone and photo galleries, seriously apart from the occasional cafe there was not a lot else to this place, very nice greenstone and photos though. Also I had been complaining about not seeing the Southern Alps all day as everyone had told me that from Westport to Haast I would be riding along with the Alps rearing up to my left, yet I hadn’t seen diddly squat. That was until I had a look at a postcard of Hikitika and realised the only reason I couldn’t see the Alps was that I couldn’t see more than 50m in any direction due to the good old west coast rain.

A few more kilometres down the road two seriously cold monkeys rolled into Harihari (The Town where the Doc that worked on Dad’s thumb was from). I was wearing thermals under wet weather bike gloves and hadn’t been able to feel my fingers for the last half hour, so you have to feel for Jared who only had summer gloves on. He may have lost feeling in his extremities but he made a master call in the Harihari pub for lunch. Firstly some awesome French tourists took pity on us and offered us the fan heater they had been using, pins and needles in your hands as they warm back up is a “Good Burn”. Then we had the creamiest pumpkin soup in history, followed by the sweetest Whitebait fritter Sarnie on the freshest bread with heaps of butter. And to cap it all off, by the time we had finished lunch, the rain had stopped and what passes for sunshine in the west coast was shining.

So we finally rolled into Franz Josef Glacier cold and sore, managed to find a fairly reasonable hostel to spend the night which had a “Clothing optional” hot-tub. Unfortunately the only other people getting in said hot-tub were 3 Israeli dudes that had recently got out of the Israeli army; luckily we had all chosen the clothing option before getting into the tub. Also next time you’re in Franz Josef try the Johnny Cash Ribs at the Landing Bar, so very very good.

The next day was going to be another casual 200km day, but as we were both coming up on a week in the saddle it’s what we were wanting. To start the day we cruised up to the actual glacier and were ½ along the 90min walk to the base of the glacier when we came to the conclusion that riding boots and leathers are not designed for bush walking. (Way too hot) So we took some photos while the west coast clouds decided to play ball for once and headed back to the bikes. The next stop; Fox Glacier (Where the Doctor had tried to reattach my dad’s thumb, but had not been able to) for a morning tea of some really good pumpkin soup (Sorry about all the food references, this is not a food blog….yet). We then jumped back on the bikes to head out to Lake Matheson when Pie’s bike alarm started sounding…Bugger! We figured that his immobilizer remote (remember Wellington) had run out of batteries, but I wasn’t holding out much hope of finding a CR2032 button cell battery in a town that had a pub, a convenience store, a gas station and little else. The convenience store was about as convenient as an Italian Capitan on a sinking cruise liner (Too soon?) but the servo had one left. The problem being that the shop assistant was in the middle of a chat with her mate from down the road and wasn’t about to pause her conversation for anything as trivial as customers, so like good Kiwi boys we said nothing and waited for about 15 minutes. Luckily we hadn’t been rude to her as when we were finally able to ask for the battery she looked at the motorbike jackets and asked “You riding a Harley?” And when we answered to the affirmative “And you’re parked up by the Café right?” Again we nodded “Those bloody Telecom dick heads!! I’ve sold more of these batteries in the last 6 months since they put in that new fandangled tower than I have the entire time I’ve worked here. Just push the bike down to here and it should start running” So Jared wheeled his bike down the road with the alarm and lights going off and me riding around him laughing my arse off…Sure enough about 200m for the tower the bike kicked into life and we were off to Lake Matheson. Normally the lake acts like a mirror and you are able to get amazing photos of the lake and Mt Cook, unfortunately the wind and clouds weren’t in the mood, but there were some cute Japanese girl to look at instead.

Off to Haast for lunch (Where Dad had chopped off his thumb) and a few Kim’s before Knights points a mid-sized bird miss timed its swoop in front of the bike to catch insects and Jared catches a bird to the chest at around 90Km\hr. I know it’s not nice (and karma did catch up with me slightly a few days later) but riding behind Jared that was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

As we left the Haast pub we realised that we may had lingered a little too long on the west coast as the day was moving on, we still had a fair way to go over the mountains and the weather was beginning to close in. But as often happens when you’re not expecting it we were in for an amazing afternoon. Haast to Wanaka; what a road. Up though the Haast Gorge into the Mount Aspiring National Park was off the hook, so much so that when we pulled over outside the pub in Makarora all it took was a couple of comments about “Wouldn’t you rather be sitting at your desk in the office” and we were laughing so hard the locals must have though two manic school girls had just pulled up outside. Then along the top end of Lake Wanaka, trying not to let our jaws drop to the ground at the breathtaking scenery, whist being slightly worried by the road signs warning motorcyclists that the next 20km were extremely dangerous...Dangerous because NZ Roads had decided to use wire ropes as crash barriers, I’m sure they are great for stopping cars from flying into the lake but all they’re do for bikers is make sure we go swimming in the lake in several pieces...But I guess I should be grateful that they warned us?! From Lake Wanaka over The Neck to Lake Hawea and down to the beautiful town of Wanaka. I’m so glad we decided to stay here, as originally we had planned on staying a couple of nights in Queenstown but following advice from pretty much everyone we had talked to had changed our minds to Wanaka with a daytrip to Queenstown.

The next day we left the bags at the hotel and headed off through Cardrona to Queenstown. Man what a difference the bags make, I was really able to throw the bike into the corners, I’m not sure if Pie on the big old Harley was having as much fun in the 15 and 20Km curves. Now I’m sure that I’m going to offend a few people out there (I should be OK as I’m fairly sure only Mum and Xavier read this blog anyway) but Queenstown sucks! Don’t get me wrong the surrounding countryside is off the hook, crazy, amazing but the actual town...Over hyped, overpriced, non New Zealand, faded plastic lawn ornament pretend town. I’m sure it would go off for the winter festival, but I think that says more about the festival than Queenstown. The saving grace for Pants-town was the Skyline gondola and the AK Hackett bungy at the top. The bungy was amazing; everyone should do it once in their life. All I’m going to say about the luge is that obviously mine was broken or that Jared had a racing one. We then decided that the quicker we got out of Queenstown the better, so headed back to the famous Cardrona Pub for a pint but unfortunately they were closed for a work function, but got the mandatory photos outside. At sometime throughout the day Pie and I realised that for a myriad of reasons we had not had a proper drinking season all week, quite rare for 2 lads who in Sydney and Melbourne love a good school night session or 2 on top of the weekend runs. So once we got back to Wanaka we headed to a fun bar with a massive patio area overlooking the lake to do some work. I got the first jug in, handed over a $20 and received $15 in change...

”Hey mate, are all jugs $5?”

“They are for the next 2 hours...Happy hour bro”

“Sweet, what’s the price after happy hour?”

“$7”

“O for Awesome!!” The rest of the night got a bit fuzzy.

The Saturday morning rose quite sandy and sad. Sad because today Pie and I would be heading our separate ways, he was off to explore the deep south, while I would now swing upward on the homeward run. Dude; thanks for a world class trip, see you for the F1. A blue Powerade and the open road on a sunny day is a great way to banish a hangover. The vistas you see running from Wanaka to Twizel though to Christchurch, I could full several entire blogs with words trying to describe them, basically they are truly massive...If you need more go watch “The Lord of the Rings” again.

Just outside of Twizel karma decided to remind me not to laugh at my mates when a bird flies into them, by having me take a bee to the throat at 120Km/hr. I’m not sure if I hit him arse first or head first but I did have a nice big welt for the next 3-4 days, and no I’m not saying it’s anything close to taking a bird to the chest. Twizel seems like a lovely little village, granted I think I saw it in its best light, on a sunny early summer day that was both Election Day as well as the town Santa parade day so everyone was out and in a festive mood. Then past Lake Pukaki with the views of Mt Cook I had missed on the west coast. On through Fairlie and into poor old shaky Christchurch. Man is that town broken, when you stand back and look at the skyline there is not one building over 4 stories that doesn’t have something wrong with it. Finding a hotel was a bit tricky as the Christchurch information centre was pretty much at ground zero and the city council had more pressing things to sort out than 1 night’s accommodation for a random North Islander on a road trip. Also that Saturday was the 1^st day since the 2^nd quake that Cathedral Square was open to the public. I seriously considered going and having a look around but in the end decided that that weekend was for the locals and the last thing they needed was some tourist walking around happy snapping them as they got the first look at the broken heart of their city.

Sunday was yet another phenomenal ride. The Kaikoura coastal road is a dream and with the pungent smell of kelp in your nose and that beautiful strong sun in the sky there isn’t too many other ways I’d like to spend a Sunday. I had been looking forward to a “Greymouth” Crayfish ever since I had first started planning this trip so I was most probably a little too eager when I rode into Kaikoura’s South Bay and ended up spending $80 for what was a great BBQ Cray, chips and pint. North of Kaikoura you can buy a Cray and chips from beachside caravans for $20. I got into Bhenheim quite early so spent a good few hours checking out the town centre and getting some sick Kiwiana jandals from the Ware-Whare.

Monday was a dirty drizzly day, not that I was too worried as I was planning on spending the first half of it on the ferry heading back to the North Island then running up to Aunty Kath’s and Uncle Gill’s. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be as when the ferry berthed, some Muppets thought it would be a good idea to tie more than one mooring rope to just one of the pylons, this meant that when the wind blew the boat, it ripped the pylon from the wharf so that it swung down and smashed a hole in the side of the ferry. Ok it happens, there is an idiot born every second. What got me was that they still loaded all of us and our vehicles on and then, just as I was settling down in a comfy front row seat for the crossing, the Capitan came over the intercom to explain that “Due to New Zealand maritime law we are unable to sail today”. A company that needs maritime law to tell them not to sail a boat with a hole in the side doesn’t exactly full you with confidence. So us bikers got to stand around in the drizzle for the next 4 hours waiting for the next ferry (but they did give us a free coffee) and also since we didn’t make it into Wellington until about 5pm there wasn’t enough of the day left for me to make it up to Waitara that night to see the rallies. I was adamant that I would knock off as much of the lower North Island as I could before finding a place to sleep and after a few hours it looked like I would be staying in Bulls for the night. But as I was rolling through I was concentrating too much on finding a hotel and missed the State Hwy 1 turn off, so didn’t realise I was now on State Hwy 4 heading to Wanganui, by the time I did realise I was only 30Km out so decided to stay the night there and sort it out in the morn.

Early the next morning I glanced at the map and saw that Hunterville lay roughly due east, so pointed the bike that way, swung my leg over and got on with it, trusting in the road signs to get me there. All was going well and I got to see some truly rugged back country until about 30km out from Hunterville when I hit some fairly substantial road works. So it was down to 30Km/hr over corrugated gravel roads all the way to Hunterville, now with the rain falling fairly solidly (but I was back in the warm old North Island so the rain wasn’t too bad). Back on to State Hwy 1, swung the bike north and away I went. Until about 15km out of town when going up a hill ZZR seemed to drop a gear as I was coming down the hill into the 1 (closed) pub of Ohingaiti the poor girl just died on me...Oww well that’s why I paid a little more for roadside assistance. An hour later I was in ute with my girl strapped to the back heading back to Hunterville and the local garage. When we got back it was time for smoko (Kiwi version of morning tree) where I had the honour of meeting the Rangitikei District Mayor, Chalky Leary, he seems a nice guy but then most politicians are agreeable when in the formal setting of a rural garage’s break room. After a coffee my mechanic had to quickly help a local (Fair enough) so I decided to start stripping the bike, only to discover the problem as soon as I took the seat off, the 30 odd Km over rough roads I had run that morning had shaken the negative lead off the battery. A quick reattachment and I was running down the road again. Yet another amazing Kiwi meat pie in Waiouru and I was on the home run over the desert road into the Waikato and then Thames to catch up with Mum and Dad.

Thursday and the 2011 New Zealand Baby Tour kicked into high gear with me meeting Ethan, Arielle and Alex. Then on Friday to have a proper session with J and to check out Auckland’s new rugby world cup area down by the old America’s cup teams area (I hope they can keep that going) then on to a great catch up with anyone that could make it to my standard Auckland watering hole, The Northern Steam ship.

Phew, that was one hell of a trip, and writing this post took even longer. Thanks to everyone that helped with it. Now to start planning the next one!