Preface:
I have 200 odd photo's and plenty of small clips especially of the band when I got a bit pissed on saterday but the gallery appears to be broken so ill just put a few in here)
Short Version:
Best time of my life, went off without incident except for that little thing on saturday night.
Extended version with missing scenes and 9 hours extra footage including a directors cut and a commentary.
I woke up around 5ish on friday morning a little hungover as per a usual weekday morning, most of my stuff was ready but I had a shower and assembled the rest of my kit. threw everything on my bike and eventually left a little before 6. I quickly realised that the fog was alot thicker at 6am than at 8am when I normally comunte and found my self soaking wet and having major difficulty seeing very more than a few metres in front of the bike. there was a bit of a break just as I got out of auckland but leaving the bombay hills it got bad again. I had changed to the tinted visor as the sun was coming up which of course didnt help the fact that I was practically riding through the sea.
I got to hamilton in one piece lucily and spent ages swearing because I couldnt find a supermarket (I passed the pac-n-save on the way in because I didnt want to go in there that early in the morning aand It didnt look open at just before 7:30ish) found a countdown and bought me some good healthy raw nuts to munch on to keep energy up and all that. turns out I blew all my food budget on those. but nuts are yum so I got them anyway.
I went to find an internet cafe since to find out where I would be going from there. realised the the directions I had written down in an email had been deleted off the webmail and I was kinda bung so I looked at a map of NZ and said... hmmm well I want to go about there (finger on the screen on the mountain) so Id best go there then there. easy. So I got on highway 3 and went down the line till I got to Otaravegas or somewhat town and found a bike store, awesome guys (once they found someone who knew what the cold kiwi was) who had a nice big map and it was a peice of piss from there. went down 3, went down 4, went along 48 (or something like it) and I was there.
I arrived around 1:30 or so, following the instructions from SparkyBills, or my rendition of the instructions I set up camp in the completly wrong place. I took a few pics, walked around then got bored so sat on my bike with the KB hoodie on and waited for KB'rs to find me. 5 Minutes later Sels1 and his gang of young hooligans and whipersnappers found me and took me back to their camp which was pretty well much better set up. Sparky Bills turned up not much later and then I brought my tent over to the shanty town as well. Originally I was going to tie it to my bike and drag it there (I had already gone and bought and started consuming essential liquids) but was talked out of it. me and Phantom (ta phantom) carried it over and I let/got sparkybills to ride the bike over. im sure it was a real thrill to ride a more powerfull bike.... cough
Anyway, had my dozen beers, watched the bonfire for a while with the group. lit some smokes off the fire and had a generally decent time. went to bed a bit early (amazing how 9pm can feel like 2am when your out camping) and was woken up rather early saterday morning with lines like 'sleeping in on the weekend is only wasting your own time.' well yeah I spose but I dont think that sleeping in is wasting time, its quite enjoyable. turned out that I was wrong though, me and sels1 went up to ruapehu and had a bit of a feed and a drink up there. some little fatty kid tried to talk to us about junk but I think the lower oxygen levels might have gotten to him or something.
luckily for us, the parking wardens told us to right to the top so we got to park basically as far up as you can possibly go. a few other bikes from CK were there also.
*so I dont go over the character count this part has been 'shortened' a wee bit eh selsy
we got a few photo's then decided to head back as to not miss too much of the events. my engine wouldnt start straight away so I just left it in neutral and rolled.... surprisingly quickly too!I thought this was awesome and also noticed that my 'hands free' approach to biking was also working particularly well (must of been the altitude) so I go past all the wardens and junk waving my hands and saluting them and all that giggling my arse off that im coasting down ruapehu no engine no hands, I had one close call so I kept my hands a bit closer to the handlebars (IE on them) and by this point I noticed that sels1 had figured out what I was doing and we started to coast down the mountain, chest to the tank and legs on pillion pegs, we managed to keep to the limit all the way down and didnt start up our engines till about the chataeu, that was definately a fantastic experience. so quiet, so serene. I was on a buzz the whole way down.
We got back to the camp eventually. and got set up to watch the hill climb. since I was still on a bit of a buzz and I was thinking about it I mentioned it to slipstream hoping I would get a bit of encouragement. and boy did I get it.
so I went over to my bike, legs shaking, adrenaline already running. took off my pizza box mount and my wing mirrors. started her up and entered. no time to waste they sent me off.
ok now, I have to point out when you watch the video it doesnt look steep at all. but if you watch the helmet dash when they are on hands knees you get an idea. it was about 35 degrees when I came off the first time and about 45 the second. still, I gave it a shot and it was soo much fun to be doing something like that.
btw the first time I came off cos I went into it badly and didnt recover, the second time I ran out of power in the engine just stalled. ofcourse there was no where for it to go but on the ground.
Ok so after that watch some wheelies and some slow racing and some burnouts. ... oh wait. I forgot... the Helmet dash! woot that was hillarious.
Slipstream entered with my helmet and made an absolutley FANTASTIC effort and won the first women prize (which I will let slippy get into at her own digression) also its worth pointing out that the less you wore the more points you got. one loverly red headed gentleman decided to go starkers (there had to be one) photos to come.... if you really want
intresting note, during an attempt to wheelie a harley, I caught a stupid drunk guy jumping over his mates bike (video 2) which actually came out really well.
hmmm, back on topic. had some food, the nachos were actually pretty good! otherwise I heard the dinner was pretty mediocre. I started on the horrible moonshine I scored from a mate at work aroundabouts 6 I think, I also had a few of the guys beers and well, sorry for those I 'inconvenienced' and a huge thanks to Sels1 and the guys from the camp across the way who... ahh.. well to be honest I coma'd outside my tent and they carried me in. there, I said it.
I woke up sometime wondering how I got from the tent with the band in it to me tent but didnt think of it till morning
The band was fantastic btw. that might have been the homebrewed stuff I was drinking but I had a great time. I got heaps of video of them playing too. I will put them on my site (pyrocam.com) sometime shortly.
Also there were some great fireworks going off on sat with the band.
was awoken nice and early on sunday and must of looked like shit. I felt like shit. and my lips are still feeling the freeze burn or whatever it is. I have two red bits of useless rubber at the end of mouth, I'm hoping for feeling to come back sometime early next week.
Thanks for the awesome time Sels1, SparkyBills, Phantom, SlipStream and was it JohnBoy and Bones? Also saw Draco and Death Inc and Froggy Frenchman, oh and Holy Roller.
so to summarise. FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC!
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Originally Posted by froggyfrenchman
...but good ol' Phantom was there to protect me from ginga-freckle cross-contamination. 
Thanx Phantom 
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