TOTO

Auckland to Picton - Wednesday 22.02.12

The bike had been prepared the night before with all the necessities for the 10 day trip including tools, number 8 wire, and plenty of cable ties and duck tape. Somehow I had the feeling that I had forgotten something. We are going to the South Island for the TT2000 motorcycle ride - 2000 kms in 48 hours and do some south island exploration after...

The day started early with a wake up alarm at 5.30am. Quick shower, battle gear on, a prayer to the biker gods to keep us safe and I’m off. The plant was to meet up with Gremlin at BP Authoban at 6am ish and leave at 6:30 at the latest. I was running slightly late so pulling into the gas station at 6:20am, I was thinking that I will have to endure the regular dose of mockery about making him wait. Instead there is no Gremlin and no bike to be seen anywhere. One energy drink later I see there is a TXT message in my phone saying he is on the way, just swinging through the petrol station. I knew he would be late – it does take a while to fill a petrol tanker. Close to 6:40am I see the blindingly bright headlight of Jessica (Gremlins’ BMW GS Adventure). He gets off the bike and is all grinning from ear to ear – excited about the trip me thinks. Quick catch up and we decide it is time to get some kilometres under our belts.

We have to swing via Rotorua as Gremlin, the workaholic he is, has to call in to a clients place to set something up. This and the need to catch the interisland ferry at 5:30pm in the afternoon means we need to keep mostly to the straight roads. The cages are behaving themselves with the odd nana doing 75km/h in a 90km/h “Safer Speed Zone”. Saw a few smurfs but no reason to concern as we are behaving. Honest officer. Also saw car parked on the side of SH2 going to Metameta that a guy and a girl who were having a naughty on the side of the road. No tinted windows or curtains lol.

As we are riding I keep wondering what will be the thing I have forgotten - there is always something. Finally it comes to me – tie downs for the ferry. DOH. Oh well, not a biggie, I will swing past a Repco and get some. I know that those things usually happen in threes so I wonder what the other two things that present themselves will be. Couldn’t think of anything so decided that since I usually use three tie downs on the ferry and I have not taken any then that must be my three things for the trip and everything else will be going according to plan. I’m soon proven wrong.

About 70kms from Rotorua , Gremlin pull over and informs me that he has found something for me to do while I’m waiting for him in Rotorua. Apparently I have a blown light bulb (which was working fine in the morning). Of course I do, we do not call him Gremlin for nothing – those sort of things always happen when Gremlin is close by. He asks me if I have spare. Here is the second thing I have forgotten. I did not bring a spare bulb with me. “You should know better” he says. Oh well, I am going to Repco for tie downs anyway. We arrive in the city of the boiling mud. We split and the workaholic goes to sort out his client. Light bulb replaced, tie downs obtained, gas filled. The weather is mild and rainy so I head into the local Macaas to have a double shot of black coffee (no sugar) and more importantly use their free Wifi.
Perfect holiday so far, only one thing missing... Muah.

In McDonalds I got enriched on all affairs in Rotorua – who is shagging who, who got drunk and fell out of the balcony etc. I also attracted the interest of a maori fella who was sitting next to me with his wife and kid. He proceeded to tell me stories about Christchurch earthquakes, the weather and who know what until he got to the topic that really interest him – party drugs. The polite gentlemen then explained that if I happened to be a lover of the marihuana leaf. but did not fancy getting in trouble with the law there was new thing on the market called “Tai Mana”. “Same Buzz, but totally legal bro” was how it was explained to me. As it happened by coincidence he actually had some with him and showed me the pack, I even could score a hit or two if I felt like it - he’d do me a favour. Amused but not interested I politely declined and got back to my coffee and e-mails.

Could not get in touch with Grems and at 11:40 decision was made that regardless if we left Rotorua together or separately we still had to catch the same ferry. I had to get going. Quick TXT to my gadget loving friend and off I went. As it turned out we met in Turangi about an hour later and Gremlin is yapping something about how a dog ate his pants… At the same time we got a notification from The Interislander that the ferry we were originally booked on was cancelled. We had been rebooked from 6:30pm ferry to the 8pm ferry. Phew – that gives us a bit more margin. My theory is that Gremlin was running later with his client, so he hacked into the computers of the Interislander and broke them, hence giving us the extra time we needed to get in on time. That’s my Theory and I’m sticking to it. We were both kind of hungry so a mandatory food stop at the Turangi food stop was needed. I got the bacon and egg burger and Gremlin decided on the curry on rice plus a milk shake. I got my yummy burger but turned out there was no rice for the curry, so thee other hungry biker (sorry – motorcyclist) settled for mashed potatoes with his curry. Food scores 10 points. It almost had the feeling of a 5 star restaurant.

Back on the road, I had a quick fuel stop at Taihape and then it was 250 direct kilometres to Wellington. Did it all in one hit and arrived in Wellington at 6:40 pm. Checked in and went into the small bike rider shelter to hide from the rain. Two other riders arrive after us – one on a Hyosung GT250 and the other one on a CanAm Spider that he had purchased just 3 hours prior. Plenty of mockery regarding the three wheeled spider was started, but it was quote interesting to learn that the Spider is actually classified and registered as a car. That meant that there was no helmet requirement – interesting loophole. Anyhow, after enough chatter, we get on the ferry, tie the bikes down and head up on the “resting deck” to have erm some rest. Apparently the sun deck is closed – wonder if the wind, rain and the fact it was now almost 8:30 had anything to do with it. We used the time to catch up on stories, adventure planning, bike crash stories etc. I felt hungry so had a treat of curry chicken on rice with Indian (roti?) bread and Gremlin opted for the roast beef on veggies.

The ferry arrived in Picton at 11pm. A short 1km ride in the heavy rain to Tumbstone Backpackers and we were home for the night. Gremlin proceeded to try and smash the place up almost knocking some of the light fixtures off the ceiling – that’s a tradition by now. I had forgotten to say the compulsory “DON’T BRAKE ANYTHING”. Lucky for us the light fixture is still there. I proceeded to dry all my wet clothes, shower and sleep. What a cracker of a day *yawn*


pic 1 - Gremlin Turns up late
Pic 2 - Having food in Turangi - Bacon and egg burger and Curry on Mashed potatoes for Gremlin
Pic3 - Gremlin on The Interislandfer, not happy to be on camera