Nelson Rally! (31 October-2 November)

[orangeback]

what day ya noodle?

friday

[alley cat]

2 x trumpys leaving fri also. might meet up with some of yas
Woohoo, cant wait!

[helenoftroy]

Woohoo, cant wait!

Excellent see ya there

We leave via the Rainbow Friday morning....Mikkel on the Tard.Me the Antique on the DR.....lead by Shrek on the Tank

She'll be an adventure!!!bring it on!!!!

[Mikkel]

She'll be an adventure!!!bring it on!!!!

She'll be a right pain in the arse I reckon... but any excuse, for taking on some liquid pain killers, is a good excuse I reckon.

[Ghost_Bullet]

for taking on some liquid pain killers, is a good excuse I reckon.

You might be onto somthing, better stash the kids Pamol in me bags.... yummy.

[helenoftroy]

She'll be a right pain in the arse I reckon... but any excuse, for taking on some liquid pain killers, is a good excuse I reckon.

Yep your keen!!that seats a killer

Its a fine line between pleasure and pain lol

[Mikkel]

Yep your keen!!that seats a killer

Its a fine line between pleasure and pain lol

We'll have a debriefing tomorrow evening... with beer.

For now I'm just keen on hitting the road

[dangerous]

go a crew ove 8 big japas metting 9.30 leaving 10.00 am from the peg

aiming at being there...

[The Lone Rider]

Left Friday afternoon via inland.

Great ride and great weather.

Set up, then went into town to a place right on the marina and all of us got nice big steaks and fizzy. Back to rally and yadda yadda.

Saturday up at 8, on the bikes by 9 and went around Nelson etc.. pub crawling mainly due to the rain and none of us being assed to go further. Met a nice bunch at Charlie's pub.. be careful of the blonde who plays pool. Big time shark. The guys all chipped in few coins and went to the slots and dammit they won money. Not my luck though, lost the lot.

Back to the rally at about 9pm, got food and drink and mingle til bed time.. bit of rain and a dash back to the bikes to recover a left out leather jacket.

Ouch what time did we go to bed? Certainly ended up awake not much after.. at 7am. Packed and more soberafied by 8:30 or so.. head home via coast. Bit damp on way to Blehiem.. bike having a few wetness problems with the speedo not going and I obviously have fucked something as it was wanting to go right a lot and I can see now the tread is worn more on one side rather visablly.

Kaikoura onwards.. brilliant. Not warm, but plenty of sun. Did see some bike(s) who obviously mucked up as they were all on their sides on the road with people standing around or something at the Waiapra turn off.

For 3 days, not to bad and the whole lot of us only got pulled over once. Yee ha!

[NordieBoy]

Rode past a couple of times on Fri and Sat evenings tooing and froing from the Maungatapu. Looked like peoples were having fun.

[Ghost_Bullet]

In the beginning, some Turkey had left it late to get the wheels back on the bike with new rubber on Thursday night.

Quickly got that sorted, ready for the planned journey, on the long'ish diversion route. The Arthers, West Coast road, Lower and Upper Buller, awesome awesome awesome!!!!!!


Was a brill day for a ride, weather, roads were spot on. Even though the butt was weary by the end, it was magic..... (more to follow)

by GhostBullet

[Jantar]

I left home at 7:30 am on thursday on a nice cool (-1 C) sunny day. Almost no traffic on the road, and until I reached Fox Glacier there were more cops than other vehicles. I have calculated that the ratio of cops to public in Southern Westland is one cop to 100 population compared to one cop to 800 population for the rest of New Zealand. It must be a real dangerous place to live.

Stopped for lunch in Hokitika, then continued north via Reefton. At Inungihua Junction the temptation of the Buller gorge was just too much, so I turned left instead of right and went 15 minutes down the Lower Buller to where it starts opening out then U-turned and headed back towards Nelson. I arrived at MyGSFX's place in really good time. 10.5 hours from home and 9.5 hours riding time.

On friday I took a short detour up to Farewell Spit before going to the rally site. KBers soon started arriving and we generally set up in two KB areas. Some of us were more aware of the weather forecast and set up in the shelter of some trees, while some went to the more traditional KB area out in the open.

Saturday, it started raining, then it rained, followed by some water coming out of the sky. It did clear early evening as predicted, but then the rain came back. Despite the weather, everone had a good time, and the event was well worth attending.

On Sunday I hit the road home at exactly 8:00 am and set out for a leisuely ride. First stop for fuel and brunch was at Springs Junction, and by the time I got there I was feeling pretty dam cold. Maybe I should have worn the winter weight gloves after all. A few bikes went past while I was there, including one GSXR, two up and in a hurry.

Not far past the Hamner turnoff I saw the GSXR parked at the side of the road. The female pillion had taken her riding gear off, and the rider was looking a bit pissed off. I didn't stop to offer any help as the cause of their distress was obvious. Two cop cars, one GD and one HP, were parked a couple of hundred meters past them, and the cops were obviously conferring, and looking back at the bike. My guess is that they got caught at walking speed.

Heading the Inland Scenic Route, I was suprised to find that all the petrol stations in those small towns like Windwhistle were closed. I did consider turning off to Methvan for fuel, but in the end decided that I should be able to get to Geraldine if I rode very carefully. I made it, 368 kms between fill-ups but there wasn't much left in the tank. It was getting pretty warm by now, so off with the jersey, and on home via Tekapo. I arrived home just after 6:00 pm, 10hrs 2 minutes total time, 9 hrs 11 minutes on the bike from Nelson to home.

I guess I'm now ready for the 1000 miler.

[helenoftroy]

Rode past a couple of times on Fri and Sat evenings tooing and froing from the Maungatapu. Looked like peoples were having fun.

Saw you going past a couple of times we did

[helenoftroy]

We set of on Friday for the big adventure is the rough stuff...and an adventure she was,in more ways than one!The road up the Molesworth to the Rainbow had about a million massive potholes....I know cause Im sure I disappeared into every oneShrek bottomed out the front end of the GS and caused a bit of damage.....Mikkel did awesomely on the Husky Motard

We all struggled both up and down a large slip that was thick loose scree interspersed with hidden large rocks.No bikes dropped......we did well

The rally......as all could see I just hated every minute of it,it was just horrible

Nah I had a ball,a fantastic weekend.Great to catch up with everyone, meet some new KBers.And thank you guys for looking out for me and keeping me out of too much mischief

Shrek poledancing,Mr Sensible drooling, and Dangerous with wandering hand syndrome were a slight concern.....boys the lot of them!!

Will admit to being slightly seedy for the first hour heading home,but after a fantastic cooked brekkie at a friend of Shreks in Blenhiem all was good

We followed Ghost Bullet & Mr Sensible home from Kaikoura,the sound of the twins getting on the gas with those cans was so cool....
the trusty old DR bringing up the rear(shes a great wee work horse,I love her)

[Mikkel]

Sure, we didn't drop any of the bikes in the loose stuff... As soon as we got to the camp and off them, that's a different matter
The tard may be light - but pushing 146 kgs of motorcycle up what was effectively a scree slope was quite hard work! Guess knobblies have their justification then Rainbow road was a lot of fun, so doing it twice wasn't too bad.

My first rally, think I'll have to attend more of these - not often you can manage to keep people up and drinking past midnight here in NZ. Good to meet some more KBers too.

I did however not enjoy my trip home, between earlybird Harleys and being kicked out of the tent when they closed down around 3.30 I was a bit tired. Add a persistant hangover and a loud motard and it's the perfect recipe for an imperfect ride.

I'm rather disappointed that noone were keen on going riding in the rain saturday, rather weak I must say! Going all the way to Nelson and not going over Takaka hill seems a waste to me.

I managed to clock up just about 1400 kms over the weekend, so the Husky is due for a service. While my arse got a bit uncomfortable at times it never got painful as such... On my way home it was most definately drowned out by my general state of misery. I'm still feeling wasted today.

Speaking of misery - does anyone know how I manage to secure a massive bruise below the ribs close to my right kidney? My memory is a bit hazy and I didn't actually discover it until I was home in Chch. It looks rather impressive...