All about the best thing in life... riding!
Wednesday morning and up at 9am, except I think Toto was awake earlier. Breakfast will be grabbed when we’ve left the accommodation (allowing more sleeping of course) at the usual bakery. We pack up, or at least I pack up while Toto repairs the mechanism on his helmet that is protesting at the amount of dust. We’re slightly over-time again, receiving a reminder, but we’re already well on the way to getting out of the room. Toto’s (race) helmet is protesting at this gravel stuff, so ...
The alarm went at 9am, but this time there was no rush to leave the accommodation. We had two nights in Hanmer Springs, allowing us to explore the Rainbow Rd and Station without the weight of all our luggage, and also more time to do things at our pace. I wanted to leave earlier, as I knew the Rainbow would be about 3 hours, if not more, we had to do it twice and some side tracks, but at the same time, it was our holiday and time to take it easier, sample the food, enjoy the scenery and so on. ...
It’s 9am and the bloody alarm is going off. I had used the other bed in the room this time, which while still soft at least wasn’t like the other bed which did its best interpretation of water. I’d woken during the night cold, so had stolen the other thin blanket from the other bed (this time there was a pillow and blanket for both beds, not the one like my previous stay). It was hard packing everything up already and I could have slept longer on a better bed, but we had more riding ...
The alarm is going off at 4.30am, our pre-arranged time. I have some 1200km to cover before completing the TT2000, which I budget to be 14 moving hours, 16 hours all up (rough maths), plus a buffer of one hour for safety, so I want to be on the road at 5am. I send a txt to Toto to confirm he’s up (as our rooms are not near each other) which he confirms and I complete packing. Most of my gear had already been packed where it needed to be, but there are always the final tweaks. Sticking ...
Danseys was much easier than Hakataramea, except I rounded one corner while we were still on the seal to find Whatastoner picking up his bike. I go to help, but he’s off up the road almost as quickly, so I hop back on and follow him. All action in this ride so far… We photograph the cattle grid at the top with our bikes side by side. Next up is the Danseys Hotel and Naseby Fire Station. We find those, photograph and carry on. It’s excellent that we’re like minded, stopping only for a photo ...
A rest day in Christchurch means a nice slow start to the day, then tackling a few things that needed sorting. Both of us were going to check-in for the TT2000 in the evening, but while I would head south in the evening, Toto was heading back to the accommodation for sleep, then leaving early in the morning. With that in mind, and most places offering a late checkout of midday, we booked the accommodation for Friday night as well, to give us the most flexibility. 9am and by mutual ...
8.30am and we’re up. The night’s sleep had been OK, only disturbed a couple of times by ol’ freight train. We head down to the breakfast bar for the complimentary breakfast of scones and cornflakes (and to admire the female batch of backpackers of course). The day had started very promising with nice sunny skies, but the rain clouds were in the distance looking threatening. Breakfast complete, we packed and got ready for the day. I ended up chatting to Forklift Driver for a while, ...
I could probably sum up the entire day with one word… wet. However, GiJoe has taught me real good, so why say 1 word, when several hundred will do? Up at 5am (yes, really), and most of my packing has been done the previous night. I have breakfast, finish packing and I’m out the door just before 6am. Down the road for gas and I’m only slightly late to meet Toto at the BP Papakura Autobahn. He’ll try to claim 5 minutes, but it was 3, and he can’t argue with a BMW clock! ...
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