Planning an Epic Adventure - Will trade beer for use of couches

**Conquiztador** · 6th July 2009, 10:39

Originally Posted by Trudes

Great stuff! You guys are legends!
Hey does anyone remember when a bunch of Honda Club riders skipped out on paying for their meals down south and a whole lot of KBers chipped in to pay the hotel the bill to keep up a good 'biker image'? Anyway, the folks at Glenross Lodge sound like very nice people so maybe if a bunch of us who are enjoying reading your adventures but were unable to assist you along your way could chip in like $10 each to pay for your nights accomodation? Anyone else keen?

Yep, I will forward a $10 if you tell me where you want it deposited.

**Danae** · 6th July 2009, 10:51

Originally Posted by Conquiztador

Yep, I will forward a $10 if you tell me where you want it deposited.

I'm all for it

If you PM me a bank account I can donate $10

**Aaron_newrider** · 6th July 2009, 20:08

Are the guys still on planet earth?

**Squiggles** · 6th July 2009, 20:10

I heard they were captured by the locals

**junkmanjoe** · 6th July 2009, 20:36

its amazing the little bike is still going

**Danae** · 6th July 2009, 21:32

Brown Fury is made from 110% Beast and 27% Luck

**sil3nt** · 6th July 2009, 21:37

Originally Posted by Danae

Brown Fury is made from 110% Beast and 27% Luck

And i guess the rest is Fury?

**Danae** · 6th July 2009, 21:40

Originally Posted by sil3ntwar

And i guess the rest is Fury?

Oh yes, plenty of Fury too.

Oh yeah if they've stopped at a random backpackers they might not have internet.

**Conquiztador** · 6th July 2009, 23:22

Originally Posted by Danae

Oh yeah if they've stopped at a random backpackers they might not have internet.

That was their plan. To get as far up past Gizzy as they could before it got too dark and then settle for the closest backpackers as apperently there is no KB's up that way?

**Danae** · 7th July 2009, 11:19

Weather's looking good for thursday

**stevo2001** · 7th July 2009, 12:00

Well!!!!!!!,I am following the story here in Colorado.Where are they?,what are they doing?.

**munterk6** · 7th July 2009, 15:53

and to think it was I that started the ball rolling by inspecting the Beast here in ChCh as a 'pre-purchase' check lol!
That old 80cc blue stroke Suzuke was never gonna do the entire trip, Im surprised it made it as far as it did!!!
The story goes it sat in an old fellas lounge room for 15 years untouched before the guy here in ChCh bought it and ressurected it into life. Then then these two maniacal 'students' saw it on trademe and asked if anyone in ChCh would look at it for them. I agreed and the rest is history....oh, and so is the Beast. I guess it just couldn't face leaving the Mainland so suicided as a final solution.
Anyway, I gotta hand it to these guys, its a journey only a coupla crazy naive students would undertake in the middle of winter no less.

Rock on boys...live every day like its your last, who knows, it may be!

**ecko_nzed** · 7th July 2009, 20:22

Originally Posted by Trudes

Great stuff! You guys are legends!
Hey does anyone remember when a bunch of Honda Club riders skipped out on paying for their meals down south and a whole lot of KBers chipped in to pay the hotel the bill to keep up a good 'biker image'? Anyway, the folks at Glenross Lodge sound like very nice people so maybe if a bunch of us who are enjoying reading your adventures but were unable to assist you along your way could chip in like $10 each to pay for your nights accomodation? Anyone else keen?

Yeah I'm keen to chip in, One good turn deserves another. And this is making for Damn good reading, funny as shit.

**Danae** · 7th July 2009, 21:05

Originally Posted by stevo2001

Well!!!!!!!,I am following the story here in Colorado.Where are they?,what are they doing?.

I think they are getting to Waihi today if all goes well.

**motorbyclist** · 8th July 2009, 01:12

So we awoke to a brilliant sunrise over the pacific and everything looked set to be good. By the time we were warming up Brown Fury, however, it had started to rain quite steadily. The trip though nelson was uneventful - while we did get lost it wasn't hard to just keep riding until we hit a highway - and we gassed up only the main tank on our way out.

The next FOUR hours was spent riding through the shittest weather to get to gisborne - we'd keep thinking we were half way there to only see a sign telling us we had over 100km to go. Riding in the wet is ok, but riding in the pouring rain, freezing wind, and poor visibility is not fun. At 66km to go it finally stopped raining (we had ridden ahead of it, somehow) so we finally disembarked, let all the pooled water in our gloves/pants/boots drain, and then swapped seats to finish the journey to Gisbourne in sunshine. We would've stopped for scenic pics but the camera got wet and died.

By the time we got there we weren't happy. The wind was freezing and we were very cold and tired. Shivering, we bought some more oil and gassed everything up, then set off down the road for warm food - indian was the meal of the day and feeling somewhat better I donned a second layer of thermals before beginning the re-oiling process on the side of the road right in the centre of gisborne.

To, re-oil Brown Fury, without the use of a funnel, we have to remove the seat. This in itself is not difficult, but getting it to fit back on afterwards is the challenging part, compounded by short tempers and local gangs of schoolchildren roaming the streets and asking endless questions.

After this operation is completed we check our financial situation at the nearest ATM. It doesn't look good. I'm broke, Jafa will be shortly. we take out some cash for the backpackers. Hopefully studylink comes through on tuesday.

On our way out we stopped by the local gas station for directions. Apparently the road north is closed due to slips. "Highway Could Be Closed For Weeks" was the local headline, featuring a picture of perfectly passable terrain - There's a road near my place I ride every day that looks just as bad. So we ring-a-ding-ding north up sh35 for some time. We reach tologa bay with a few hours of daylight remaining so decide to continue onwards to tokomaru bay.

As the road continues there's a few washouts and spots where the road goes to one lane for a few metres, but overall she's all sweet. After a fair while we finally hit a roadblock. We stop and ask if it's passable and while the first guy say's she'll be sweet, the second tells us to go take the detour. Apparently it's mostly gravel and will take an hour. Given we have only an hour of daylight left we oblige and take the detour, rather than loose that hour assessing the slip that might turn out impassable.

What the guy neglected to mention is that this "detour" was an hour and a half of mud, loose gravel, mud, more mud, logging trucks, rouge sheep, rouge goats, rouge cows that run away from us down the road, at the same ace as we're riding along it too (can we add cows to our list of passed vehicles?) and one rouge horse running along the road towards us... when we finally emerge back on the highway my legs, boots, and the whole of Brown Fury are covered in dirt. It is dark and due to all the low revs and having the light on for courtesy we now have no lights. We go to take a photo but the camera is still dead.

We ask a passer-by for directions and sure enough we have to backtrack to tokomaru bay. 15km later and one very near crash on roadworks thanks to poor headlights and even poorer signage
we arrive in the bay and head for a backpackers. The place is deserted but unlocked, we would call the owner but my phone has too little credit and jafa's phone has suffered the same fate as his camera, so we go get some fish and chips.

Now here's the best part: Talking to the locals, apparently beurocrats have dicked around with the slipped road and issuing a contract for over a week now, and only just put up the detour which DID infact use a farmer's farm track and few forestry roads. Only yesterday did the LPG truck get through, and the gas station is about to run out of petrol (which is needed to generate electricity in some of the homes). The whole area is suffering shortages due to slack response from the government (specifically transit or whoever they're called now), and companies not wanting to change shipping arrangements to bring things in from the north.
To top it all off, the 90 minute detour starts and ends 10 minutes either side of the bay.
Also, it is perfectly passable for a motorbike.

Fuckers.

Atleast we've got a warm fire to dry out all our gear by.