bosslady

Gravel, roadworks, wind and sun - you're not my friend!

Went on a nice trip in the weekend North Shore to work in Central Auckland on Friday, left work and stayed the night at a friends in Cambridge to help break up the trip a little from Taupo to Hastings the next day. Left Cambridge after a lovely bacon and egg mc muffin brekky and headed to Taupo to meet Grashopper on Saturday morning, few spots of roadworks, some road ripped up really bad on the way there, but somehow I survived...

Got to Taupo, met up with Grashopper but before I left Cambridge I realised the bolt for adjusting my chain had vibrated almost all the way out as the thread was gone on the adjuster. Now I'm not going to say his name... but a certain Mentor in Taupo hooked me up, changed my adjusters and off I went safe and sound with Grashopper to Hastings to see some of my family.

Made one stop on the way at the Tarawera Tavern (?) had some lunch (chicken, lettuce and mayo sandwich = simple but yummy and my beloved V!) bit of a dodgy place to pull in to just as you come over the hill. Not long after we got there, sitting down to eat our lunch, 4wd towing a jet ski turned left into the car park - person behind wasn't keeping a good following distance/not paying attention to what's ahead of them (those two things = bad combination!!) and almost went into back of said jet ski, lots of smoke from their tyres! Anyway... one of those you had to be there things. We came across a bloke there on a yellow bike (I still can't tell what's what ok? so sue me!! it was yellow!) from Napier who had just gone for a ride there to have a bite then back again - that's the life eh? Funny how I wouldn't normally break into conversation with absolute strangers but when you have a motorbike somehow it's like an open invitation!



Stayed the night in Hastings with family, although Grashopper wanted to try a hostel down the road from my Aunty and Uncles house. Bosslady led the way for the whole trip of course, not called boss for no reason? But hey, thumbs up for Grashopper having to follow my awful lead, that lady deserves a big pat on the back! Anyway back to the hostel... Bosslady leads the way down the gravel driveway, into gravel car park. She thinks hey that's a good place to park and does a sharp turn. DOWN GOES GINNY! Several things learnt here:
1. Sharp turns on gravel, probably a stupid thing to do
2. Keep hard shit out of my pocket - I now have a garage door remote sized bruise on my thigh. I think I need to seriously start looking into a very small tank bag to keep things like my keys, phone etc. in
3. Cordura isn't as robust as somehow in my head I had pictured it was and while it does have its uses (water proofing etc.) I do wish I had bought leather! Damage to my pocket on my pants where I fell on the gravel, I was basically going ZERO k's per hour :P But hey, think of it as "character" eh?



And don't worry I'm fine and so is Ginny. I just had the right hand side of my pants and jacket dirtied when I fell on the ground/gravel, little bit of damage to my pocket, small bruise but the worse part? That actually didn't phase me too much, embarrassing for sure, but the next couple of days when I had to turn into a road, or go around a roundabout I had this bizarre sensation as if my bike was going to slip right out from under me and I was going to fall again, what a terrible feeling to come from such a stupid, insignificant mishap! The only "damage" Ginny had was some scratches/scuffs to the brake lever. When I dropped my bike first thing I did for some reason was hit the kill switch. Anyway some guy that saw helped me lift my bike. Got her up, tried to start her UH OH, not happening... oh that's right - kill switch DUH. Flicked it over, ginny didn't want to start... uh oh... give her some revs and away she went PHEW. No offence, but didn't want to be stuck in Hastings forever

So anyway as I said, we (well I was anyway) were there to spend time with family I hadn't seen for 7 years. There was never anything stopping me from going in my car except for petrol costs of course but the thing with my bike is I find myself always trying to find an excuse to go for a ride, hence the weekend trip! Was great catching up with family and a nice meal was had, family within the vicinity came around for dinner too to say hello. Had some yum veges that my uncle grew, he runs his own little shop off the side of the road selling vegetables he grows.



Sunday morning we both left my Aunty and Uncles quite late and went up to Te Mata Peak. I'm not going to lie but since I was a kid and up until Saturday night, I actually thought it was called Tomato peak... Ah well. For a newbie me, it made me super nervous going up the sort of one lane road leading upwards, just made me uneasy because I couldn't see around the corners and the other side was a longgggggggg way down! Got to the top and what a beautiful sight...




I was nervous about going down but actually found it easier than going up!

From there we went straight to Napier where we went to a cafe for some lunch and then we caught up with swtfa for a coffee (or in my case, another V!). Was great meeting another newbie and one that was thankful for my inane threads - just saying!

Afterwards we went back to Taupo. We considered stopping half way again at the Tarawera Tavern/Cafe but we (especially I) wasn't really in the mood for going into the awkward entrance coming back just before you go up the hill. We did talk about stopping somewhere further up the road before hitting Taupo but as the "leader" I decided fuck it, I don't want to stop, I want to get back to Taupo LOL Grashopper later said she was happy we didn't stop, she must have been feeling the same Back to Taupo about 5:30pm I think. My flatmate "M" arrived not too long afterwards and we went and got pizza from domino's and watched a movie before bed.

Next day we (M and I) said farewell to Grashopper and made our way to the Taupo track for M's track day. He said to take a picture of him so he could tell his gaybook friends he's so rich he has a whole garage to himself (clearly he jests!).



"M" also just got a new SHOEI helmet and I'm so jealous, it's absolutely gorgeous! Very jealous...



Spent the day there watching M ride and left to go back to Auckland about 3:30pm on the Monday.

AGAIN with the freaking roadworks, stuff you! Not very happy though entering the road works on the way out of Taupo. The man with the STOP sign wasn't anywhere near being where he actually wanted you to stop. I suppose I could have missed some kind of sign or something a little back but he actually wanted you to stop at least 5 metres before him so the traffic coming towards us could get through. Confused me because all the other roadworks guys were WHERE they wanted you to stop and/or had cones there to make it obvious. I'm sorry but waving at me doesn't mean much and doesn't tell me where you specifically want me to stop? So, I had to roll/push with my feet, my bike backwards. No problem with all the other roadworks/men with signs down that way though. I'm just saying it's easier for people to see you/know what you want them to do when you're standing up rather than sitting in your car a short distance from your sign...

About half way through my trip and particularly when I came out of Cambridge, boy did the wind hit me big time - nearly shat myself it kept trying to push me into the WRONG lane! I couldn't even keep my lines in the corners as I normally would as a few times some particularly strong gusts of winds almost blew me into other cars - windy it was for sure, but I wouldn't have called it gale force - still scary though! I had to keep to the left hand wheel track for a fair bit of that part of the trip. The worst part was a couple of occasions where I was slowing down for a give way or stop sign, down from 100kmh, slowing down, changing down gears, mid gear change and a big gust of wind comes through - PHEW! I survived though, so must have done something right...

Only stopped the once in Cambridge for fuel and the second time in Mercer for a stretch. This is where I realised it didn't matter that I got a head start on M getting home, because I'd forgot my bloody keys! So... might as well take my time getting home, which I did, and the wind and such was slowing me down anyway - all G!

Get home and I'm greeted by freaking heaps of bloody acorns all over our driveway (some random chinaman had come and picked up a couple shopping bags full the day before apparently - it gets that bad!). I think they have been conspiring with the gravel from the car park in Hastings because they too were determined to have me drop my bike. But I won this time, stuff you! The picture doesn't look that bad, but you get the idea.



Journey over, time to take off my gear and maybe find out why the lower half of my legs and knees are SO FREAKING SORE! Oh that's right, it's because I didn't put any sunblock on in Taupo, I'm a pasty ghost and got burnt pretty bad and to make it worse I was only wearing shorts under my bike pants so my sunburn must have been rubbing on the inside of my pants, especially around the knees, all the way up - ouchy!



Now to decide what to do for Easter Weekend!

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