Well I headed off on the Thursday before Easter in fine fettle. For about 2 hours that is, then the lingering remnants of a lurgy I'd had hit me and I started feeling like death. Cold, pissed off and wishing the sun would shine. I stopped at Taumaranui fed the bike and myself and started to feel better, it's amazing what a hot roast beef sandwich and a bucket of coffee can do. The local Suzook dealer let me hose off the tonne of mud that Transhit NZ had kindly left on the main highway for the holiday weekend and I headed off again. The locals had said the Parapara's were in poor condition so I thought I'd take the Ohakune Rd, one last check with a road crew at National Park said that they weren't that bad after all, so I took a punt and headed for Wanganui. Then the sun came out, the road got twisty and all was right with the world again.
I wasn't half knackered when I reached Welly though.
Onto the Kaitaki in the morning, which is not a bike friendly ferry with it's strange tie-down system. It left a half hour late because Toll seemed to be surprised that a lot of people might want to cross the strait on Good Friday, but to be fair, the cafe is much better than the other boats.
So it was into Picton 3/4 hour late, met the mad Blenheimite at Spring Creek and we took off for Nelson. Another quick trip with him running interference ahead and we rolled into Richmond at 2.00PM.
Strange though, the in-laws car wasn't at home and my loving wife didn't rush out to meet me. Her Mother came out and said the ominous words, "can you phone her". It turned out that, while Air NZ managed to get her to Neslon, they didn't get her luggage there. So, three flights later, around 4.00PM we were repacked and headed for Hanmer, a quick fill at the local servo and him from Blenheim said to carry on, he'd catch up. Now I don't like riding at night, so we had to cover as much ground as we could before it got dark. We had a splash and dash at Murchison around 5.00 after giving up on the mad Blenheimite. (didn't know where he'd got too, more on this later)
I was quicker on the brakes than the local cops trigger finger, then at a safe distance I opened the taps again. It started to get really dark at Maruia Springs, which slowed us down, but we finally rolled into Hanmer around 6.30. I didn't realise how cold it gets down there when the sun sets, my Buell handguards were worth their weight in frozen fingers. My hands felt cold but didn't get to the 'so numb, I can't squeeze the brake' stage.
A loooong shower till we turned prune-like, followed by a great meal at the 'Old Post Office' made us feel human again.
More to follow.
Reply With Quote
Part of its attraction.
Originally Posted by Patrick
Bookmarks