not that I'm getting impatient or anything...
YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!! (POOOOP goes the finger...)
_______________________
And so it started.
The forecast was on the money.... and then some, whoohoo!!
The motley crew
L -> R Jeez-it-was-a-load-of-fun-Yours Truly....Jimbo (dusty), the poor, lonely Yank amongst the coop of ‘Strayns, aka “Hiroshima”- Jim due to the glow-in-the-dark-helmet...TimSF (Sir Francis...or is that “Pope Francis” now?)....Tim (as if one wasn’t enough) sitting and trying to look sort of serious for a minute....Roger (lodger), who had no idea what he was in for....Goodie, now leading the AT Diving Team....Andrew (hayesy) in front of those 2 empty brown bottles.... which pretty much says it all.
Holy Mackerel...what a RIIIIIDE!!
It just couldn’t have come any better...the main tourist throng out of the way, incredible weather for the whole 2 weeks with only the odd cloud cover in the mornings and a total of maybe a lonely hour of rain...way too little to wash off the thick sheet of dust and muck, flush away the bug-cemetery up and down the whole front of jackets, pants and boots or maybe clear the ton of crap off the fronts of the bikes.
Shows the importance of picking the right time for a given place...and with roads and tracks to ourselves, there was plenty of opportunity to sample much of the best the place has to offer.
And what’s on offer is simply !!!!!!!!!! BREATHTAKING !!!!!!!
What’s also breathtaking is the “Aussie-Phenomenon”.
The white-knuckled, shitting-themselves cross-wise Aussie tourists in their Juicy Rentals Hyundais, scared witless by broken white lines EVERWHERE, real intersections instead of the strings of roundabouts and the near total absence of the forests of signs, regulations and pointers every 10meters to tell them how and where and when to fart, blow their nose and scratch their arse.
The lack of the entire regalia of moronic “we-think-for-you-every-millimeter-of-the-way Big Brother numbing + dumbing-material and the need to actually be awake, alert and aware, actively participating in traffic and going-ons by the
NEED TO THINK FOR THEMSELVES and being forced to make decisions on those thoughts is by now such a foreign concept to the poor, pathetic buggers, they’re sticking out from the international tourist-soup like a turd from a soufflé.
No wonder some Aussies visit the place just for a good, old drive through the countryside where driving actually involves some action and thought, participation in your surrounds, judgment and skill rather than the dopey crawling from sign to sign in doze-mode while watching your speedo every inch of the way.
And guess what...no piles of corpses lining the corners of all those twisty roads and passes, which is a loud and clear “up yours” to those Australian rent-an-expert road safety clowns.
Let’s have some fun then.
Rog and SF...still laughing while thinking of a last-minute bail-out?
Approaching Christchurch
Made the 4pm pickup by a smidgin...once more, Hakan was absolutely fantastic, all the bikes good and with brandnew hoops! One awesome operator...hats off, mate!
Kitting out with the “personal bits”...like....Airhawks and lambswooly gel pads for the DR’s....and other “arse-saving” measures.
First round on Jimbo....he’s coming along in a hurry, yoho!
SF put a deposit down right-away....new curtains coming next week.
Nifty Kiwis...why fix the brickwork; just build a fence to suit over the top...
Tucker for champions
The Middlepark Motel in Southern Christchurch proved an ideal stay....and Vaughan, our host, is one of those super-friendly Kiwis, always happy to help. Great folks!!
With a full belly, the first bagfull of laughs and a generous helping of some local dark brew we even found a long-ish, laneway-and-park riddled route home which had absolutely nothing in common with the way we took to the pub....exactly what this trip's all about, ey?
Onyerboike in the morning then...