Hanne

“Romance, Two Strokes and The Bard”
(Disclaimer: May be detrimental to Maturity Levels)

Heading into Stratford we kept passing holiday parks with romantic names such as ‘mountain view’. They may well had a lovely view of the mountain, but on that Sunday clouds swathed the landscape right up to the treetops. Needless to say, having a ‘view’ was not top of our priority list as we cruised for a place to stay. Andrew had the number of a youth hostel so we cruised the streets I search of the mysterious building. Up the street, down the street, double check the address… it was then that we realized that the ‘abandoned building ‘ we had passed was in fact not abandoned but very much open for business. We also decided that first impressions must count for something and made the collective decision to seek a roof elsewhere, settling on the holiday park near the centre of town.

There were already around 10 bikes parked up around various units in the park which we took as a good sign. They turned out to be taking part in a ‘Chateau to Plateau’ ride and mostly consisted of Goldwings and Harley Davidsons. The sorts of bikes that could have had Brown Fury strapped to the back of them and not flinched because, as Andrew pointed out, his bike ‘weighs as much as a fat pillion’. Luckily none of the pillions in other units heard that comment, but just to be safe we lifted Brown Fury onto the deck outside our sliding doors to keep him close overnight. Originally the plan was to house him in the kitchenette, but the prominence of the ‘No pets’ sign convinced us otherwise. Pets were forbidden on the grounds that future guests may be allergic, and caring people that we are, we did not wish to aggravate the sinuses of any two-stroke-sensitives.

Stratford upon Patea enthusiastically embraces ties to its namesake, Stratford upon Avon. With street names such as ‘Juliet’ and ‘Cordelia’ and an abundance of tudor-style buildings the Bard reigns supreme. The main attraction of Stratford, however, has to be the giant Glockenspiel on the main street. Four times a day mannequins of Romeo and Juliet emerge and declare their undying love for one another before disappearing into the bowels of the clock tower. The last performance is at 7pm, and we rocked up on the DR650 and H100 just in time to enjoy the show. Any romance said show engendered in either Andrew or Stephen was not to be directed towards their girlfriends, however. As we were to find out later in the night, they took the mechanical aspect of the show rather literally…

7pm also heralded the hour of rumbling bellies, so it was time to cruise the streets in search of a bite. We were totally gangster, riding to one end of time, swapping riders, riding back down the main drag, checking out all the fish and chip stores. The H100 did elicit a fair few waves from locals heading home from the local pub, and it was a group of said locals who directed us to the locale where we ingested our evening sustenance. Stephen ordered the biggest plate of sausages and chips we had ever seen, and there happened to be a sausage left over when we had finished. The waitress came to clear our plate and it was then that Stephen decided to retain possession of said sausage.

We found out the reason why when we were gearing up to leave again and turned around to find Stephen assaulting various orifices of the DR. Camera time, and these photos were the sort that shocked my mother. Until she saw the identical set of Andrew and Brown Fury, that is, and realized that all the lads were doing was looking for a suitable place to store the food. Completely innocently. In the end they settled on the ‘DR with a strap-on’ as the most suitable solution and this too elicited looks from locals, but these were looks of a different kind…

Heading back for the holiday park we decided it would be good to pick up a six pack to take home with us. The only problem being that six packs are rather hard to come by at 9pm on a Sunday night in provincial towns. Andrew did stop to ask a group of youths on the outskirts of town, but they seemed to keen to sell him substances of another sort… So it was that we ended up snuggling up on the couch, watching giant anacondas writhe in their orgy pit, shotting tequila from Stephen’s hipflask and washing to down with slices of golden queen peach. Rather a new taste sensation, to say the least, one that was only enhanced by its coupling with ‘anaconda’. The ‘strap on’ sausage did make one more cameo appearance before bed time but the lads managed to control their Honda riding tendencies and said tidbit was then quietly stowed away in the tank pannier, waiting to fight another day.

That day would come with the dawn of Monday, the day we were to warrant Brown Fury, farewell Taranaki and tackle the great Forgotten World Highway…

(To Be Continued)