A gift for some friends

[Big Dave]

Stink - I suppose I'll have to put up with a hug from you again?

Just say no and give him a Maori clasp and bump. Or a gangster slap if he continues to get frisky.

[Kickaha]

Stink - I suppose I'll have to put up with a hug from you again?

I must have been drunk

oh yeah it's a 1985

[Mooch]

You write so pretty....think I'm gonna cry

Will you have my babies

Careful or I'll post a youtube video of a certian South Island trip ..... the one about you were saying something about "not being scared of your wife"

JD , great write up

[Paul in NZ]

All right - I'll have a go....

Livin' on the road my friend is gonna keep you free and clean,
Now you wear your skin like iron, your breath's hard as kerosene


Well – that’s the way the song goes for Pancho and his mate Lefty and while my breath may indeed smell of refined spirits, livin on the road with an old Triumph tends to make your finger smell like gasoline…

Anyway, old country songs are floating through what’s left of my mind while once again I’m spending a wasted morning sitting uncomfortably on the worn seats of the Interislander with the dear old Trophy lashed securely to the deck between two precariously wobbly modern bikes. Ferry designers may know a thing or two about the sea and presumably ferries, far too regularly old ferries seem to find the bottom of the sea, as opposed to old fairies who also seem to gravitate to bottoms of a different ilk… However, these designers seem to know bugger all about the lashing requirements of modern motorcycles or perhaps the people who design modern motorcycles never expect them to be lashed to ferries? Bit of a chicken and egg thing but seriously, this is the kind of shit you think about on ferries – anything to avoid real thinking, sinking or boredom… I started with a plan to avoid thinking but having given up on serious books, glossy magazines, newspapers and having recently found the strong late winter sun plays havoc with my PSP screen – I retreat to navel gazing and talking to Jim… One of these is very boring, both of these are hairy and one is filled with lint and the other is not. Jims a lot of things but hes not boring – he knows stuff about shit I didn’t even know there was shit to know about – er – if you get my drift… I especially like the look on his face when I give him some latex gloves from my backpack… Eventually Jim understands it’s not an offer of a starring role in YouTube’s amateur proctology hour but rather the solution to the grubby ‘free’ tie downs he is forced to use which dirty the hands and then the gloves of itinerant motorcyclists. I rather smugly brought my own – which are rather cleaner and the dear old Triumph is a lot easier to lash down cos it does not have any fairings n stuff – just the bare essentials of biking and lashing… The biking third keeping Jims Kawasaki 750 and my Trophy company is some kind of German all road contraption of immense size, attitude and cost. Mr GS Beemer man and partner seem friendly if a bit confused by the whole thing not to mention amazed that anyone could be mad enough to let a museum piece out on the highway and they liked my bike too. It was not reciprocal ‘cos I didn’t like their’s much. Frankly, given its reputation of expensive fragility when falling down, odd suspension and ruffty toughty round the world image I would expected the good Burghers of the Bavarian Motorwerkes to have thought of providing better lashing points… It seems half the adventure in adventure riding is in tying the thing down properly. Oh well – at least the Trophy does 1 thing better than its more modern deckmates…

Before us, across the shimmering seas of Cook Straight lays the road to Christchurch, winding through the long empty land of mountains, campervans, cafes and grapevines and behind us, in suspended animation lays our lives…

Picton is a lot of things and its not unpleasant but it’s best described as a rather boring accident of geography so we don’t muck about – it’s hello Warwick, nice bike mate – right lets go and so – we do… A diverse bunch – Sophisticated 4 pot DOHC Japanese bike fettled within an inch of it’s life, a raucous earbleeder of a OHC bevel Ducati L twin and an ancient pommy push rod twin with it’s roots going back to 1937… Egad – 3 very different bikes and each one representing an era and the vision of the riders so perhaps not so different after all?

Blenheim sits uncomfortably close to Picton. No ones quite sure how two towns got built so close but perhaps it was the same folks that established Napier and Hastings? It’s a theory I’m working on.. Without stopping for gas we churn on – bottoms fresh and minds alert heading south to Christchurch – my home town. How do you describe the ride to Christchurch? Well, it takes longer than it looks on the map! There is some nice coast, some hills, heaps of vineyards and not many cars – it’s also cold in August. The grass might be waking up at my place but the south still sits wrapped in winters white waiting for the first kiss of the green prince to awaken the warmth of summer. I’m going to a mods n rockers event and decided to wear ‘the gear’… Open faced helmet, basic leather jacket, armoured jeans tucked into old leather boots. It may not have looked genuinely authentic but it felt authentic and I froze, just like we did back in the day… sigh, Oh how we suffer for our vanity!

Back onto the open road and through the hilly roads before Dashwood and Seddon we stonked along, neither speeding nor dawdling and I suspect the two more capable motorcycles were cutting me a break. A lot has changed since the 60’s, the road is a lot more open, sealed and much faster as are the trucks and cars. The dear old 650 may have been king of the road once but now it’s not even minor nobility! Times change but one thing that does not change is the time you get to think when the road is clear and you are passage making on a bike. I grew up in the South Island so I’m pretty familiar with the roads and a keen observer of the little things scattered about as the flash past like old friends at a family reunion.

For instance, in Seddon on the southern side there is an overbridge, it’s called (rather majestically), ‘The Seddon Overbridge’. Its an inspired name choice right up there with Sandy Bay and Rocky Stream… I was expecting a sign later on like ‘Tree with Branches’ or ‘Paddock with Grass’ but I was disappointed.

I like the old stone church at Wharenui, one day I’ll stop and take a picture of the bike in front of it but more importantly I like who it’s dedicated to. St Oswald, was a warrior king of Northumbria (604 to 642) who ended up loosing a battle and getting hacked to pieces (bit like the All Blacks) which must have been rather painful given the dull swords those blokes had. His head and limbs were placed on stakes which must have pretty undignified, no doubt ACC would have had something to say about that these days! Still, I did think about poor old Oswald and the upcoming Mods vs Rockers Winter Rumble – better not loose I suppose… I don’t like steak.

I’m not sure what to say about the road north of Kaikoura – other than it’s a bloody good one. The Trophy just droned on and on through tight bends and sweeping ones, down straights and up n down hills. I’d stopped constantly expecting it to explode about 15 years ago so I just worried about enjoying myself and I did a pretty good job of it too. Every now and then a head would turn as old ears recognised the thrum of a different exhaust beat and a few wry smiles crossed old heads.

[Paul in NZ]

All the other places rolled past – The Clarence River, also known as Waiau-toa ,home of NZ’s most famous UFO sighting in 1978 and the less well known great UFO spotting expedition also of 1978. We didn’t spot any UFO’s back then but realistically, as the night wore on, unless the UFO’s were under a rock or in the bottom of a bucket it was very unlikely we would have since we did spend a lot of time face down on the ground – fortunately no one was probed either.

‘Nins Bin’ is another place I look forward to – dunno why ‘cos the only time I ever stopped the crayfish was terrible but I like the jaunty optimism of the thing – certainly its something for all old caravans to aspire too in retirement and it too has been there as long as I can remember! If you are lucky you can watch them launch or retrieve the fishing boats along here, it makes motorcycling look pretty tame!

Kaikoura has changed! It used to be a little flesh pot of a town renown for a high number of unemployed people and a startlingly violent drug culture and useful only for petrol. Now it has a lot more bars and cafes to give the unemployed people employment and a better chance at selling drugs to and beating up the tourists. It also has the world’s worst barista operating the slowest coffee machine in the universe. Bleugh – my breath was starting to smell of kerosene! Anyway, it was all kinda new to Jim and he got so excited he swapped his visor as it was looking dusky outside and ordered the garlic bread which was lucky cos that’s all they had – next time I’ll pick a café’ mate. The dusky sky meant that the sun was over the yard arm so I had a brandy to wash the coffee out of my mouth… It was just as well I was not drinking and driving because that’s dangerous!

Eventually we left Kaikoura and soon entered the pesky 80kph coastal zone. I was feeling rebellious so I did 85 (high on Brandy?) and then we hurtled up the Hunderlees. The Hunderlees used to be very scary, twisty and have really big gutters to soak up all the vomit from car sick passengers but now they are not very scary at all. I suppose it’s an improvement, the lack of vomit sure is but there are still a couple of bends to catch the unwary – so I dialled up extra wariness…

Around Parnassus we found Mikkel – or he found us, I forget which, and I properly met him at Cheviot. I like Cheviot – the old Road Services Busses stopped there and there was a big toilet block where you took a slash and a little tea rooms, they are still there except there’s more competition now. We didn’t take tea this time – we just took off instead and now it was really serious about getting colder.

I lost a pair of sunglasses at Dommet once when I turned my head on an old AJS 650 – they still sing songs about it as it was the most interesting thing that ever happened in Dommet. You can be sure, if UFO’s did come to NZ and they landed at Dommet we wouldn’t get a great write up in the intergalactic Lonely Planet Guide…

It was getting colder and I was suffering. In fact my brain froze up at one point – this was taking nostalgia too far I thought with my last active brain cell! Jim and Warwick were turning off at Waipara which was fair enough – it turns me off to. Once I bought an old Kawasaki trials bike there but then the area got over run by the rudderless religious commune zealots from Camp David and was all long dresses, headscarves and weird smiles. I was riding with a group to Hanmer Springs once on the Trophy and a van load of Camp David folks failed to see the car bearing down on them as they turned across the road. I can assure you that while these folks may be spiritually different, all the inside bits n bobs are pretty much the same as ours. The young fella in the back of the van ended up with an exterior ulna which he was pretty damn stoic about. One things for sure – if all zealots are like that lot its no wonder Jesus died on the cross – the useless buggers wouldn’t have a clue what to do about a wound and couldn’t summon a first aid kit if they tried. Good job I had a clean rag and spare tee shirt – it worked a lot better than faith that day.

Anyway – after Waipara two things occurred to me – one was – bloody hell there is a lot of vineyards here too and the other was I should have pulled over to say see ya to the others and equired about the next days activities but I was cold now – really cold and somehow it didn’t seem doable so I didn’t try… Sorry lads…

Christchurch comes up very slowly – you have to ride through all kinds of dull places and the latest out posts of the Vulgarian Empire. Its full of leaky homes, bad taste mansions, people movers, soft roaders and awful soulless vulgarians. In the old days when Oswald was about people often dug a dirty great moat to protect themselves but now it takes too long to get a resource consent for a decent defensive ditch so cities erect huge tracts of tasteless wilderness called ‘subdivisions’ to discourage invasions. It nearly worked but fortunately I was once a local so I came prepared and stole through the outer defences cocooned by humming pointless 60’s pop music.

Last time I rode my Moto Guzzi to ChCh I was propositioned by the ugliest crack whore in the west – it was astonishing because it was raining and winter and I was on an old Italian bike swathed in multiple layers of Mr Spidis finest designed to keep the nasty things of nature out – I’m not sure what she was suggesting but I have long been curious how it was to be accomplished. This time I thought I see what happened when I was dressed up all retro and on an old English bike. I was disappointed – I’m not sure if I was too early, if it was the uncomfortable looking chrome tank rack or the open faced helmet but all the whores just looked away, laughed or got really interested in finding a cigarette in their handbags. I was crushed – perhaps the economy is still so good the hookers have got choosey?

I left Manchester street and burbled on. The grandsons were still up waiting for me and they knew damn well that Nana would have included little treats hidden in my luggage. My daughter knew I’d be cold and had a hot cuppa waiting with a few Vodkas to follow and after a cold ride there is nothing better than a warm welcome and hugs all around from your nearest and dearest.

The old Triumph just sat in the shed lump lump lumping away until the fat old git in the unsuitable clothes gave the ‘stand easy’ command and flicked off the key. A drop of oil went splot on the ground and then once it figured out all the other oil was not coming too on the escape attempt – sat there looking a bit embarrassed!

A very satisfactory day really!

[James Deuce]

Sue Poib!

What about the photos? - Oh yeah

[Kickaha]

Sue Poib!

What about the photos? - Oh yeah

Oh yeah , no bastard took any

[Kickaha]

Friday 21st

I push the starter and the Bike roars into life and settles to a steady idle as I gear up, originally I’d planned on a early start and a leisurely ride up with several stops on the way but decide to let the day warm up a bit first so I’m not pulling out the driveway until 9 which still leaves more than enough time to meet “The Boat”

A quick stop at the Caltex and the tank is filled to the brim, I’ve always thought I could make Picton on one tank from home and today I’m going to find out

I avoid SH1 wherever I can so I head out through Ashley, Sefton, and Balcairn I’m only a few minutes into it when I realise my race gloves aren’t going to be up to the job, I’d spent 10-15 minutes looking for my winter gloves before I left with no luck so cold fingers and all I push on

Rather than turn off into Amberley I carry on down Reserve rd onto Douglas and then into Mt Brown rd, turning onto Georges rd which pops me out onto SH1 at Waiapra opposite the Mudhouse and thus avoids a reasonable section of SH1 and the traffic associated with it

I’m maintaining a steady 110kmh until the Omihi School when I turn it up a notch for my favourite S bend over the railway line, back in the late eighties with my brother on the back I had him closing his eyes as we approached this corner as he was sure he was going to die

Into Cheviot and I stop for a few minutes at Dads and borrow his winter gloves and carry on as I try to convince him to join the Mods and Rockers run the next day, but with the clutch in his BSA apart and waiting for parts it’s a no go, as I’m leaving Cheviot I notice the local copper parked at his house, which means I can travel a bit faster than I first thought would be prudent

Coming down off the Hawkswood cutting and I hit another favourite bit of road with the run around the Conway river and up into the Hundalees, the Welly guys go on about how great the Rimutaka rd is but the reality is the Hundalees leave it for dead, I push past a couple of ignorant fuckers getting in the way and have a pretty much traffic free run through to the Oaro side where I have to stop for roadwork’s near Glenstrae farm

I haven’t been out on the bike for months and I’ve done very few km on it since I got it last September and it shows with my lines and braking not that I’m pushing hard or anything but I’m struggling a bit to get a good rhythm going

Onto the coast at Oaro where the wankers decided an 80kmh limit would be a good thing and remembering past days and a line of BMWs going through here at a pace which would see you in court today and walking for a considerable period of time

The obligatory blip on the throttle as I pass through the tunnels and the Conti music fills the air

Peteka and back into the 100kmh zone through to Kaikoura for a quick stop for a snack and a drink, I’m looking at the Kaikoura ranges covered in snow and thinking while it looks very picturesque it also looks bloody cold, 160 odd km down and about the same to go so it’s back on the road again

Past the Hapuku tree huts (where I once considered staying but one night there was worth 2-3 night accommodation anywhere else) and around to Mangamaunu where one has to watch for Surfies casually wandering across the road as their tunnel vision looking for that next wave seems to leave them deaf to the point one was hit by a train a few years back while he walked across the tracks

I’ve done pretty good at keeping the speed down more in fear of the Police presence that I’ve so often seen along this stretch of road than for any other reason, once north of Kekerengu and another short section of road I like I give the bike a bit of a trashing into licence loosing speeds until the Church at Wharanui which was once the Southern Terminus for rail out of Picton and Blenheim and where I back it down again

I take it easy the rest of the way through to Seddon where one of the biggest improvements in the last few years on SH1 has taken place with the two lane bridge spanning the Awatere River being finished a couple of years back

Into the Hills outside Blenheim where Bucket racers past have been know to hold there own races up and down the winding road and the first leg of the journey is nearing completion, not long after I’m riding down the hill into Picton and pull into the Challenge station to fill up

Showing 325km on the odo and taking 21 litres to fill, meaning I should be able to do 370 to empty at the 15.4 litres per km I’m getting

A txt from Jim tells me they have sighted Picton so I wander down to just outside the check in area and wait and before to long I hear the note of Paul's Trophy, within a minute of two we're back on the way home and I’m on point, in deference to Paul’s age or was it that of his bike? The speed is kept to the legal limit which means I spend 95% of the time in 4th gear apart from a short squirt on the northern side of Kekerengu

Because apparently not all bikes can do over 300km to a tank of gas we stop off at the Kaikoura BP for Jim and Paul to fill up and then go in search of coffee

Paul leads the way out of Kaikoura and although there’s a few ignorant car driving peasants getting in the way around the coast it’s a relatively traffic free run back through the Hundalees listening to Paul give the trophy some throttle and the throaty bark of the triumph twin

Coming off the Hawkswood cutting and there’s Mikkel on the Kwaka come to meet us, a kindly motorist gives us the flash of the lights to warn us of the copper ahead so once we’re past him I dial it up from Parnassus to Cheviot, a very brief wait in Cheviot and a quick chat and we’re on our way again

While Paul and Mikkel carry on myself and Jim turn off at the Mudhouse at Waipara to take the back road home and the first section is at a much increased speed

I ride the last part with my visor up as it’s got all dark on us and I’ve only my tinted visor but some 646 km later I’m pulling in the driveway at home

[James Deuce]

Good thing that last stretch was all closed roads.

Those Contis sound brilliant. The difference in noise between the bevelheads and later water cooled engines is quite marked.

[Kickaha]

Those Contis sound brilliant. The difference in noise between the bevelheads and later water cooled engines is quite marked.

Pffffffffffft belt drive rubbish (and I'll keep saying that right up until the time I find a 600 Pantah for pre82 racing)


Saturdays another fine day although slightly cool and it’s early afternoon before we’re ready to head out again, Mikkel turns up and we take the same roads back out that I travelled twice the day before, but turn off at the Waiapra Junction to head through the Weka pass, fortunately a slow car holds me up so I don’t get any attention from the forces of the law who already have a victim in a Subaru driver pulled up on the side of the road

I find the run from Waikari to Rotheram fairly tedious but once past Rotheram there’s some nice fast flowing corners and before you know it we’re hit Waiau where we stop off for a drink and a snack

Now the Leader road isn’t on my favourites list which is probably a result of being a rider of one of three bikes that were all written off in the same accident back in 1989 after we were cleaned up by a van so I’m taking it fairly easy through here

Despite the warning signs of grit there isn’t much to be seen and we stick to a fairly sedate pace past Mt Parnassus where I had my first school leavers job taking on the noxious weed Nasella tussock with a grubbers

Back at SH1 and Mikkel and Jim swap bikes, I’m leading the way and when I can’t seen any lights behind me slow right down, it takes a bit but once they appear we motor on through to Cheviot

Jim leads the way out on Mikkel’s bike while I tag along at the back, as we approach Greta Mikkel takes point and turns down the Scargill - Waikari rd which is about 25 km of nice flowing road also with the grit signs out but the best bit about taking it that you get to ride through the Weka twice

It’s not far from home and it’s the same back way I’ve taken so many times before and a quick shower and change for the night ahead

I would highly recommend Tutto Bene on Papanui rd for anyone looking for a good feed, the portions are generous and not to highly priced and even though they are an Italian restaurant they also do a good steak

We’ve got around 20 people attending and our table gets the slow service because we have to many meat eaters and the chef can’t keep up but a great night is had by all and I’m stoked that the likes of Paul, Jim and Chrissy have made the trip down and owe the lovely Joni an awful lot for organising it and making it happen

[Ms Piggy]

A very satisfactory day really!

You really ought to write a book you know! Well done!!

[snuffles]

Careful or I'll post a youtube video of a certian South Island trip ..... the one about you were saying something about "not being scared of your wife"

JD , great write up

Still not scared of her.....I wear the trousers in my house

[Swoop]

Superb.

PiNZ. Very nice indeed. It started off wonderful, evolved through fantastic and ended up as "epic".
The mindset was just perfect.

[Paul in NZ]

Nice comments only spur me on so....

Waylon Jennings reckoned ‘I may be crazy but it keeps me from going insane’. I like Waylon, he’s cool, his kid is called ‘Shooter’ and Waylon played bass for Buddy Holly and wrote the music for the Dukes of Hazard.

I like crazy people – well, the functionally mad, not the sort who want to play Mr Stabby with you in dark alleys but more the people that have crazy ideas and won’t be talked out of them by experience or common sense. I think the organisers of motorbike events fall into this category – bless them cos you would have to be crazy to run one…

Anyway – the Mod’s N Rockers day starts early with small boys rocking into my bedroom. Life bubbles out of healthy kids and they just can’t seem to get it all done in daylight hours so before the sun has properly woken up I have two little faces thrusting breakfast at me. It’s hard to ruin weet-bix and bananas but they put in a pretty good effort. Anyway – the coffee is good and it’s what I really needed. The boys have their bike helmets on already and are ‘coming for a ride’ with granddad.. My daughter and I both know this is just macho posturing because once the bike starts, they are nowhere to be seen. I can understand that – an old triumph has more rattles than a maternity ward and they are wise to be wary, it sounds like two cheese graters fornicating in and empty tin drum.

Once we are satisfied the bike runs I decide I need another cup of coffee. The #1 grandson decides we are going to have race down the drive – he’s on his BMX and looking pretty confident that Granddad is going to let him win. He learns a cruel lesson – Granddad can be a bit of a prick sometimes… Especially after two cups of coffee and some dodgy sweatbox!

The morning sun is doing it’s best to push back the chill of the morning but its report card definitely reads, ‘Must try Harder’ as I chug off down the streets of my youth, on the bike of my youth and visit my dad who isn’t a youth. My dad is 88yrs old and I reckon he’s still cool. Dad goes to the gym twice a week to look at hot chicks – he had to give up golf but he still goes to the gym. He still likes the bike, and asked if he could take it for a ride but I said no and he looked relieved! Hes asked me the same thing about the same bike for 20 years – I think it’s a tradition! Dad’s girlfriend made me another cup of coffee and we all talked shit and caught up with life when suddenly its time I was heading off to the Mods n Rockers thing. I was looking forwards to this – halfway there I was looking forward to getting to the dunny, 3 cups of coffee is a lot!!

It’s a funny feeling riding through the old neighbourhood. Memories hang like fog and not all of them are good ones but, I had a pretty good upbringing here and soon the good crowd out the bad. I pass the big hedge where a grumpy neighbour swore at me once and threw his hedge clippers at me for test riding my open piped Norton dirt bike down the street – I was still grinning 10 mins later but only because I couldn’t unfreeze my face – its interesting how cold weather affects old mens bladders, actually, the older you get the more your bladder fascinates you!

Christchurch is very flat and grey. It’s a funny place, but you never see many people laughing about it. It’s supposedly more English than England but I dunno, I’ve lived in both places and I don’t think it’s very English at all. There are very few red double decker busses, Pakistani bus conductors or dodgy takeaways for example. There are however a lot of people who seem to think they are landed gentry of the wealthy sort and I suspect that Christchurch leads the country in sales of RM Williams, Artex shirts and the English House and Garden magazine. The place was originally organised as a ‘planned’ settlement. 4 ships were filled with a slice of good Anglican society and dispatched to find that there were already several people here and not all of them were that keen on the new arrivals. Still, being solid protestant work ethic types they drained the swamp and built a whole lot of grey stone edifices to dear old blighty! I’m not sure how the original slice was selected but given the oddball crime that happens there, I suspect it came from the thin end of the DNA pie. Certainly those first 4 ships seemed to sail over the shallow end of the gene pool without too may issues!

Having said that – if you are descended from the first four ship passenger list you are considered special. Special enough to get the family name on a plaque in the Cathedral Square and apparently the right to be married there. My family didn’t come here on those ships, my Granddad came on another ship a bit later on. Granddad delved in the earth and was a hard bugger, loving but frankly he scarred the bejesus out of me. I don’t think he had many soft edges but rather he reminded me of the jagged flints he dug from his native Yorkshire. He was also the secretary or the tramways union during the great depression – I had no trouble believing the stories of nocturnal ‘negotiations’ involving sticks and baseball bats. He live in a real stone cottage and the kitchen had a compacted dirt floor. Still – he was always nice to us and was a great source of the occasional 3d for an ice block.

Still, the local gentry, landed or not, don’t bother me as I’m trumpeting along and it’s not them I’ve come to visit, so on we go, up Columbo St, into Manchester Street, top up the gas tank at Pak n Save and then to Street and Sport Motorcycles!

Finally I’m glad I’ve made an effort to dress the part! I guess it’s OK for grown men to dress up in funny costumes. I mean any half decent bike rally is usually knee deep in otherwise normal people dressed like gay pirates or power rangers but the trouble usually starts when we start taking ourselves seriously. I don’t think there was going to be any trouble here – it was awfully hard to take us seriously and it was far too early for serious drinking too. Because it was early, I had another coffee and found the loo.

[Paul in NZ]

The Mods really seemed to be making an effort but the co owner of Street n Sport really went to town on the dressing up – I was very impressed! They had gone to a great deal of trouble and it went off very well other than the Mods winning the rumble. Still, the ride was fun and some of those scooters looked like big fun!

The ride ended in an alleyway full of bars and nice people having fun – lots of Christchurch KBers who were stalwarts and probably should have their names on a plaque but I doubt it would get past the good burghers of Christchurch town! One thing Christchurch does really well is bars and alleyways’. The bars were warm, there was even a low alcohol boutique beer that was not warm and there was a frigid easterly wind. Eventually, the cold wind overcame my enthusiasm for beer and conversation, which is quite a testament to the effectiveness of the wind so it was up sticks and time to visit one of my brothers, back to the daughters and off to dinner…

The birthday dinner was over at Merivale. This is one of the posh suburbs, lots of big old houses, mini subdivisions called ‘mews’ for some reason or other that only makes sense when you are wearing an Airtex shirt and country road trousers. I have spent a bit of time working in the area and while its very ‘noice’ its not really me. The restaurant was very good though and the food was even better but all too soon, the weariness of motorcycling catches up and I’m looking for a Taxi.

The taxi was easy to find – they were all parked at a taxi stand outside one of the louder bars frequented by the well heeled off spring of the landed gentry who have got their names on a plaque because an ancestor got pissed and ended up on the wrong ship one night. I suspect it was mating season because the place was in full roar although curiously, there appeared to be very few females there and those few were of the ‘oh god, look, just one drink OK and then we are outta here’ sort. I suspect it could have been a bachelor colony of your bulls or maybe it was a meeting of the Honda riders club, either way it was not my scene so I didn’t make it.

Some people see dead people but I talk to taxi drivers – they interest me and I lucked out with a very interesting one! Given the somewhat exotic cast of his features (he looked a bit like Cpl Klinger from MASH) I suspected that the name Smith on his taxi ID was only recently assumed and given the haunted look in his eyes I suspected it was not the only time he had assumed another identity. Anyway – aside from my devilish good looks, I’m a wonderful talker! If talking became an Olympic sport, I think I’d make the finals so, because my mysterious Mr Smith couldn’t escape – I started with the talking.

I ended up mostly listening – I’m not as good at listening but I think I’d win a ribbon at a state fair and thankfully, I listening to an amazing tale because it turns out my Mr Smith was one of the 438 Afghan refugees picked up by the MV Tampa. (if you remember back that far) That in itself was pretty special but the tale of how he came to be there to be rescued by the Tampa, his escape from Afghanistan through Pakistan and eventually down to Indonesia was epic! It took him years to make the trip and from the look of him, it cost him dearly to end up driving a taxi in Merivale. However, by and large he was happy and grateful that his wife and children he had left behind so long ago were all together with him now. This man risked everything, and I mean everything to get where he was and he suffered greatly – I had a feeling his name should have been on a plaque in the square and frankly I’d chip in for one, I really like Mr Smith and I really didn’t like the spoilt, drunken loud oicks he drove about the gentile suburbs of Christchurch. Still – he suffered the taunts and rocks n arrows with a quiet humour and a smile, he’s seen worse and frankly if push come to shove, I think I’d rather have my Mr Smith in my trench rather than the oppositions.

The MV Tampas pretty interesting as well – NZ Customs intercepted a big cocaine shipment welded to the hull a few years after the refugee thing and believe it or not – it featured on an episode of Myth-Busters although I’m pretty sure my Mr Smith was not involved with either of these things but it does show, ships can lead interesting lives!

Eventually, Mr Smith and I reached my daughters place and we chatted a bit more – I shook his hand and wished him well, and I meant it, he was impressive in a quiet way. Certainly, as I laid in my borrowed bed for the night, I wondered how many nights Mr Smith had lain in a bed that was not his facing an uncertain tomorrow – these were heavy thoughts, so heavy they pressed my eyelids shut and I sank into sleep dreaming not of Mods n Rockers but of the oddness of a world where a man running from Afghanistan ends up in Merivale – I wonder if he has an Airtex shirt, I forgot to ask him..