5.30am… the alarm is ringing… urgh, don’t want to get up but I have to. Not for the first time, I find myself wondering why I sign up to all these early ride things. KoroJ is already up, so I pack and gear up, and we’re out the door shortly after 6am. Gas is the first task (I had most of a tank left, but filling meant I wouldn’t need gas before Napier), but there is a Z near the Cenotaph meeting point, so easily done. Hard to believe how many normal people are at the station ...
Friday Two days of blogs in one, as neither was particularly busy, and mostly about getting myself in position for escorting a cancer baton to Auckland. Toto’s alarm disturbed my peaceful slumber at 5am but he was on his feet far faster than I. I offered to return his key and he left via the ranch slider to catch his ferry. I never heard him leave as I was already back in bed fast asleep. My alarm went at 8.30am and I seriously thought about turning ...
We wanted to be up later, but the free breakfast finishes at 9am so we set our alarms for 8.30am. A nice big bowl of cornflakes and a scone or two was a most excellent start to the day. There was no rush either, so we slacked off in our room, browsing the internet and blogging for the entire morning. I got a couple of days done, with the word count rapidly passing 9000 words for the trip. It’s clear I must lay the blame for so many words squarely at the feet of GiJoe, for without him I’d still be ...
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 ...
Day 3 – Friday 24.02.12 – Preparing for the TT2000 It is an early morning wake up at 9am. The TT2000 official start is at 6pm and we have to get ready for the event. That includes get the bikes all packed, chains (ok my chain) lubricated, stock up on cereal bars and water etc. I had a slight suspicion that I had forgotten to get WOF done on the bike and more importantly the old one had expired. Further check on my part reveals that it had in fact expired about 20 days ago. Oops. That's ...
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