TOTO

Sunday – Day 2 of TT2000

Day two started at 5:30am. My phone alarm was piercing the silence like an ice pick. It was getting louder and louder and the whole bed was vibrating due to the silent vibration alert being on as well. Looked at the phone screen and wondered why the hell the alarm went off so damn early, then the pain from my tail bone reminded me. Day 1 already behind me with 1100kms on the GN combined with some rough south island had resulted a super painful backside. Never mind the pain, time to set the record for the small bike. I turn the alarm off and force the top half of the body to get vertical, trying to force the eyes to open. This is when I hear another tone from my phone – beep beep. Damn it – I taught I turned the stupid alarm off already. Then the slow brain recognizes that the tone that just bleeped is not alarm, but rather my TXT message. Who can be txting me at that early morning time ? – its GiJoe surely , to wish me good travels for the rest of the day. Oh hang on message is from Gremlin – maybe he has stopped for a rest and TXTing to let me know how he is going. Stopped he was – outside the police station in Oamaru - two km away from me. TXT sais: “FYO I'm out, crashed off road north of Oamaru, in Oamaru, outside police station”. FUCK. Quick phone call to make sure he is ok and I’m in the shower and out of my motel, fully loaded the bike and on my way to said police station. I arrive to see our hero the Gremlin floating around like a free atom and talking on the phone to insurance company. Quick inspection of his person, his gear, helmet and pannier luggage reveal that he has suffered quite the tumble, but he is ok. No physical damage, except he is a bit tired, but that is to be expected. Sigh of relief. He gets off the phone I establish that he is quite chilled out about the whole thinking, even though his misadventure has taken place less than a couple of hours away.

Given that looks like Oamaru will enjoy our presence at least a few more hours and seeing that my motel was not far away I decided to help carry some of the ripped panniers back there. A quick trip to motel to dump my luggage and back for a strap on job and the GN turns from grand tourer to a mule carrying broken BMW parts. Did one trip on which I dropped off the two ripped and well reshaped panniers. Come back to get more staff, and see that the tow truck has arrived. We decide that going over to bring the dead BMW back should be the thing we do next so we can start sorting transport to Auckland etc.

We get to the crash site and I spot a BMW lying on its side behind a fence - I expected it to look way worse than it did. Judging by what I have seen the panniers looked like I taught that the bike is probably a pile of bits, or at least broken in two like the Titanic. When gremlin does something he doesn't do it half way and that's why I taught the bike would be dead. We get over the fence, pick bike up, and put it center stand. Quick look over – man that bike is though. A few bent rails where the panniers used to be, missing tail light, brake lever, and a broken screen/instrument panel bracket, and a few missing indicators, mirror etc... Quick push of the starter button, a few rumbles and coughs and the bike starts fine. Doesn't make any weird noises - might even be able to ride it.

A quick search for a gate and the bike is out on the street, and Gremlin decides he can ride it back to Oamaru. We get there and decide to base ourselves at the motel I had stayed in last night and decide what to do. I wanted Gremlin to get some sleep first as it was his 27th hour with no sleep but he insisted on sorting out transport for bike etc and seeing if we can get the bike in ridable condition. So be it. Hour and a half later after some bashing on boxes, a number of cable ties and tie downs and that bike has panniers and top box attached as well as liver amounts of tape to hold the screen in place. It looks almost like new – almost. It was decided that the bike will be limped back to Auckland and in order to do this Gremlin needed to get some sleep. I was point of no return in terms of time and that meant that I could do the next 900kms of the TT2000 within the allowable time limit. Sent a quick TXT to Mike the organizer advising that I was pulling out.

We couldn't stay at the motel I had been the night before as it was already booked so we found another motel 2 kms down the road and moved there. Parked the bikes, got our luggage to the room, and Gremlin proceeded to fall into a nice deep sleep. He needs it. Seeing that I had gone to bed at about 12:30 last night and got up at 5:30am, I needed it too so I also hugged the pillow.

A few hours later we get up, shower etc and go out in search of food. Lucky food is just 5 meters from the motel. Don’t remember what we had, but I remember we ate it quick. We needed the energy. Quick walk around to see what going on, a few phone calls etc and it was time for dinner. Gotta find a tasty place. Got to a Pizza place where the lady in charge of the pizza distribution was quite happy to share our laugh in all sorts of gay Honda jokes, What was that place called Gremlin ? The pizza names were funny – Clinton, Lewinsky, Obama and many others which cracked us up. I settled for an Obama and Gremlin had the Meatlovers, milk shakes and desert, good combo. After dinner we headed back to out motel, then I started noticing hoq quiet the town was...

Where the hell is everyone?

Was this a ghost town?

We are not going to see zombies are we?

Due to Gremlins’ premature evacuation, we were going to find the answers of those questions on the very next day…