Gremlin's Tall Stories

The thread (here: http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/sh...20-November%29) had started ages ago, and the learners got more excited as the time drew nearer. Indeed… it seemed like it was akin to Christmas, with x number of sleeps to go.

I’d asked the boss earlier in the week if I could skive off early, and provided we had everything done, he was fine with that. Things didn’t go according to plan however, as I got home around 3pm in the afternoon, to find missed calls relating to him. It turned out he’d locked his keys in his car (he even commented that it wouldn’t happen on a bike – no comment from me) and was now stuck in Takapuna. We decided I’d swing by the office in East Tamaki, and then drop them off to him on the way north.

Just after 4pm I leave home, fighting through traffic on a large BMW with panniers fitted, get to the office to find I’d left my mobile at home in the rush. Furthermore, his spare key isn’t in the office, so I head home to fetch my mobile while he’s already rung Ford Rescue and someone is on their way. At home, he asks me to hang on, as the assistance has just arrived and they’re trying to get in, so I have half a subway for an early dinner. He rings shortly with the bad news… the car is locked nice and securely, they can only reach his house keys.

The answer is not the one I want to hear. I have to head out Takapuna, collect his house keys, back to East Auckland (he lives within minutes of me) and then back to him AND then I can finally head north! Of course, this has to happen on a Friday in the midst of rush hour. I drop my panniers so I can split in the more open areas of the motorway, leave home at 5.15pm and arrive in Takapuna at 6.15pm. House keys collected its back through the traffic to East Auckland and I freely admit I’m not thinking charitable thoughts about my boss. The key is exactly where he describes, and I collect my panniers from home just before 7pm and after refuelling I go and sit on the moronway again. Thankfully, it’s easing off a bit, but the “fun” trips through the new tunnel (now twice in one day) aren’t quite so fun, and I wish the cars would simply drive through without slowing down.

I’m back at Takapuna at 7.45pm, boss can now finally get into his car and I send Maha a txt to tell him I’m on my way from Takapuna and my ETA. Dusk is falling, so to avoid stopping further up the road I switch to my clear visor and leave just before 8pm.

Unfortunately, this is no time for fun routes, Karen my GPS is estimating I’ll arrive at 10.57pm, so it’s straight up the motorway, using Karen to know my exact speed to sit at 107-109kph and the radar detector to alert me to cops in the vicinity. Traffic wise, it’s much easier, with less and less cars as I head north. The GPS has routed me through the Toll Road, and since I disagree in principle with paying as much as a car, stuff it, I’ll go through Orewa. The GPS thinks it adds 5 minutes, so who cares, the time saving is minimal and the road is much more fun. I’m lucky, as there are no cars on it, so I have it all to myself. Pity they dropped it to 80kph, but there’s a couple of tricky corners that makes maintaining 80kph almost impossible.

Getting back onto the main route and no surprises, more traffic. I was so bored tucked behind vehicles travelling just below the limit that I never saw the speed limit change back to 100kph and was only reminded when a couple of bikes loomed in the mirrors and I let them by. I tacked on the back until one pulled off and the other disappeared after overtaking a few cars.

Passing through Wellsford (as everyone does) I had to stop for a police breath check on the northern side which consumed another 4 minutes. After waiting for my turn, I’m finally motioned forward (glad I have a flip front helmet), cop says “State your name and address into here” and I reply “You’ll find absolutely no alcohol in my system” and the cop says “That’s a funny name” to which I only half grin. He doesn’t actually need my name, just a phrase long enough to judge for alcohol, and I don’t see any reason to provide unnecessary information. He holds up the device so we can both see and sure enough, it comes back with No Alcohol, so I nodded at him and carried on my way.

The breath check has had the effect of bunching all the cars into groups of three, so the road was reasonably clear, with the odd cars to tackle. I had even more luck on the Brynderwyns, not a single car going north, so the whole road was done at my pace. Speaking to the others later in the weekend, they had all the bad luck, getting a truck with concrete tanks, and passing it in the passing lane, a logging truck at the end of the passing lane.

Entering Whangarei I hit a little traffic, but found a new bypass that had been built since I last went through the city, which made it a little easier to pass through. On the northern side the road was quiet again, but the odd stops for traffic lights had made my ETA keep climbing so turning onto SH10 I resolved to up the pace a little. This aim was thwarted by the roadworks at Puketona. I saw the 30kph boards but didn’t really see the start of the gravel because of the lights of an oncoming vehicle, so slowed while sliding on the gravel, up behind another car.

He seemed less than impressed by my low beam, flashing his lights, and flashing a couple of my lights only made him flash his more so I thought it best to overtake. This got progressively harder as the roadworks turned into really rough stuff and the capabilities of Jessica were limited by the Pilot Road 3s. Still, I kept the momentum, finished the overtake and carried on. The car I passed returned the favour by driving with high beam on behind me, making me think I should have simply slowed behind him and turned on high beam, but it was all the past. It wasn’t long before he was no longer in my mirrors and I noticed he turned off at the Kerikeri roundabout as I was behind held up by a truck.

From there, the road was all mine, another very short stint of roadworks near Kaeo and the pace sufficiently increased to knock a couple of minutes off my arrival time. I did have one interesting moment just north of Kaeo, forgetting about the little bridge. Approaching the corner around 100kph, I’m wondering where the road goes, as I can’t see it. I glance down at the GPS to see the road suddenly heading off to the left. Hmm… this was a rather unexpected turn of events at 100kph. Hard on the brakes I even manage a chirp out of the rear tyre before hauling up the bike as the bridge appears on my left. A brief look to the left reveals an oncoming car, but it’s further from the bridge than me, so I carry on over.

The decrease in ETA turned out to be futile, the GPS fooled by a couple of paper roads so I ended up having to do a couple of U-turns before ending up the right place, and finding a bunch of raucous bikers finishing off a day at 11.10pm and 290km ish covered from Takapuna.

Many had turned in for the night but the few that were left were quickly introduced, and being terrible with names I forgot most reasonably quickly. Irene showed me the Penthouse (flash huh) and I dragged my gear inside, speaking to a few of the guys briefly before turning in for the night, after a reasonably long day. The Penthouse is the only room upstairs and all to me, plus a bathroom, again, all for me. Only disadvantage was the tiny circular staircase, not so good for a guy my size.


7.07am and some suicidal bastard is banging what sounds like a pot or a pan and yelling for everyone to get up. I find out later it’s Phreak and worse, everyone had left him alive. I check my mobile… far too early and roll back to sleep, with the alarm already set for 7.30am.

When the alarm did ring it was time for a shower, which ended up being far more complicated than you would think. Apparently the upstairs shower did have issues, but between boiling hot and freezing cold (initially I didn’t think I would even get hot) there were also pressure issues, with the water stopping altogether several times. I eventually completed the shower, doing the last bit as a cold shower which seemed to have less pressure issues than hot.

Breakfast was a fantastic affair of cornflakes, sausage, hash browns and bacon laid on by the lodge. I mention bacon last as I only saw it when it was arriving and when I looked for some… it was all gone I believe I wasn’t the only one to miss out either, so someone was eating the lot.

With breakfast over Mom had asked the previous evening to sit on Jessica, so up she went (no foot stools necessary) and decided Jessica was probably a little large for her next bike. She could reach the pegs Ok (but not much further), but standing on the ground she was actually shorter than the bike. Some of the learners were quite curious about the bike, wanting to know all the features, so all the questions were answered. At least I didn’t hear anyone saying it was an Ugly Goldwing this time around. Most just couldn’t believe a bike could be that large, or have that much stuff on it. I can’t quite understand that… seems perfectly normal to me?

One of the local guys had arrived on his Duc 1198S so there was a bit of drooling over that as it certainly catches the eye. MarkW ran a tuition session with everyone, highlighting how to approach and handle a corner, how things could go wrong and what you could do. An excellent reminder for skills development. Maha laid out the route and stops for the morning, and then everyone geared up for the ride.

Everyone formed back into their groups from the previous day for the run up to Cape Reinga. I was a bit of an odd one out, as I hadn’t been in a group the previous day, and enquiring with Maha he wasn’t too fussed and said to place myself wherever I wanted to. Initially I thought it best to sit at the back, should anything happen, as there would be more hands to deal with whatever was required.

The first stop was just down the road for gas at Taipa and since I had only done 360km ish, I didn’t need gas and took the opportunity to catch up to the next group on the road. The next stop in Awanui was slow, with all the pumps full, so by the time I had finished filling my tank the groups had left and the slow group didn’t need to stop, so rather surprised, I found myself last on the road. Still, not a worry, I could ride at my pace instead, so set out after the groups and soon had the red Holden of Mom in sight. There were few passing chances, and not wanting to scare or endanger learners I took my time to move into a gap in the slow group of Maha, to observe some of the learners.

The next stop was the Houhora Tavern, the only hitch being that Maha wasn’t entirely sure where it was and when he turned off in Pukenui I asked. He said he wanted the Houhora Tavern and when questioning if we were even in Houhora, he declared we were. Unfortunately… we weren’t. I took the lead on the exit of town, heading for Houhora and when spotting the Tavern sign on the right, I couldn’t see anything on the sign which indicated it was right there, or xx m on. There was nothing around the corner indicating an actual town, so I swung round, passed the group heading north, tried the side road and sure enough saw the bikes parked up.

I raced back up the road, found the learners stopped on the road side and told Maha I’d found it, then went back down the road to mark the turn. It was a coffee stop, and while everyone took a break I found myself developing a bit of a twitch as I wasn’t used to covering such small distances and then having another stop. Still, this was a ride for learners, for their enjoyment and it gave them a chance to ask questions, or for me to follow up what I had observed. If you weren’t there for that, then in my opinion, you shouldn’t be there.

With coffee finally over (although the scenery was very beautiful) it was back on the road to the cape and I was playing TEC again. The pace was brilliant for my economy, although the racing around wasn’t allowing it to get as low as possible, but it was heading for 5L/100km. There were a few sections of roadworks and loose gravel, but all were well signposted. As we wound north I saw the burnt down station at Waitaki Landing, and then realised no-one had posted a sign outside Awanui (well, I hadn’t seen one) to warn of no gas further north. It would probably be a good idea for the tourists. The one at Waitaki Landing did seem to be under rebuild with construction materials on site.

On to the Cape, the other groups were already parked up so we joined them, then walked down to the Lighthouse. Despite having been up there several times already, it’s the first time I’ve been there in the middle of the day, the next best when dusk was fast settling. The wind was strong, but the skies blue and warm. Once out of the wind all of us commented at how warm it was getting with our gear on.

After some hijinks and photos at the signpost and lighthouse it was a long slog back up, the gear once again feeling rather warm (and perhaps having the liners in, in 20 odd degrees wasn’t the best idea). Mom did well with her broken ankle as well. After a brief break, it was back on the road south to Houhora Tavern for lunch, and I was bringing up the rear again.

I remember heading south at 2.15pm, realising I was now hungry so when the Tavern was in sight at 3.15pm, it was a welcome sight. Unfortunately, and despite Maha’s preparation call in the morning, plus our previous visit, they were still dealing with the orders one by one, so it took over an hour for everyone to get their food (and I was second last). The meal disappeared rather quickly, after we’d made several jokes about the speed of the food. In all fairness however, I can’t imagine they have 25 odd people drop by for a meal every day, at once.

I was happy to play TEC again, and make sure everyone got back safe, but some were finishing a game of pool, so I waited for them while the rest of the group left. The game of pool went on far longer than expected, both players seemingly incapable of sinking balls so much hilarity and jokes ensued

Back on the bike it wasn’t far home, with MarkW in the lead, two learners and then me. We didn’t stop in Awanui, and I thought I should double check the BP as it was just down the road, but followed behind MarkW. We stopped in Taipa for gas again, and the Scorpio was amazingly fuel efficient, using less than 10L for 230km ish of the day’s riding.

Another group passed by as we were re-fuelling (well, the others were, I was sweet as ), so I imagine they had stopped in Awanui. We caught up on the way back to the Lodge, and arrived as a group at 5.30pm. First order of business was getting out of the Rukka gear, which still had its liners and I was feeling rather toasty. Shorts felt much better, as the day had been brilliant touching the 20s. I took some time to clear work emails and look at a bit of news, then got all social again.

An hour or two of shit talking, talking about bikes and riding, plus a few questions and answers, and then Irene (one of the hosts at the Lodge) was bringing out the Hangi and the hordes were descending in their numbers because the smell was that good. There was plenty of it, meat, vege and what looked and tasted like stuffing… I don’t know, but it was tasty.

Maha made a nice speech after dinner, thanking one and all for the parts they had played, including the learners, as there wouldn’t have been a learner ride without them. The BMW had cooled to almost stone cold, so I could finally top up the oil, as I hadn’t had a look at it since leaving for Wellington. With the bike fast approaching 40,000km the dealer has said they stop using oil, and I’m noticing already that the oil consumption is quickly dropping. Still, after about 3000km, it needed 250ml, so I topped it up.

The rest of the evening was more talking, until Irene asked me to lock the main door behind me when I went to bed (what with being in the Penthouse doncha know), and I decided it was the perfect time to make my excuses (it was 10pm after all) and retire for the evening. That pretty much consisted of heading for bed, don’t pass go, don’t collect 200.

Pics of the weekend here: http://s210.photobucket.com/albums/b...Cape%20Reinga/