We drove for about an hour through the Port hills and then through Banks Peninsula to Akaroa, an old French settlement. The hills had 'cattle guard' gratings on the road. Yes, there were some cows sitting on the road here and there.
Talk about your psycho drivers! We were whipping along very twisty hilly roads at about 100 KM/H. In Canada the same roads would be maybe 60 or 80 KM/H. Worse yet, people would pass our van at speeds of say 120 or 130 KM/H on the bloody corners. Absolutely nuts! Very beautiful scenery though. The roads were in great shape: very twisty and varied, with lots of straight runs with bends. Cars were doing 140 to 160 KM/H on average on the straights. It should be great for riding a motorcycle.
Along the way, we stopped at the French Farm Winery. I tried a small glass of 1992 Reisling. It was okay. We then went to the Barry Bay Cheese Factory, where I bought a chunk of Masdam cheese. Mmmm, yummy.
I saw a 'pukeko', a goose-size bird that has a black head and body, a blue belly and throat, a red beak and face, and white legs.
We then drove into the old port town, where we had lunch at a burger takeaway. We then went out into the bay on a large catamaran, the 'Canterbury Cat.' We boated past the old lighthouse. This was replaced with an automated station and the old house was moved into the town. We then went past the salmon farm. There are three in NZ: Marlborough, Stewart Island, and Akaroa. The keeper was out feeding them.
Along the shores were various nesting birds. We then headed to the mouth of the bay, where four Hector's dolphins started circling the boat! These are dolphins about the size of an Adidas sport bag. These dolphins were being killed by fishermen until about ten years ago when they became protected by law. Now they like to play and circle near the boat, coming within five feet of the hull! I also saw a blue penguin. The water was very pale blue with silt. The boat was jostling around, so I hoped my photos would turn out okay. (They did.)
On the way back in, we passed the 'stranded sheep.' This lamb is trapped at the foot of a steep cliff beside the ocean. Apparently, it fell off the cliff six years ago and has been happily living off the grass at the foot of the cliff. The beach is surrounded by rocky outcrops, so a large boat can't get to it. The lamb is apparently healthy so the farmer decided to just leave it there.
The ride back into Christchurch was as good as the ride out to Akaroa. Tomorrow I can pick up the bike (finally)! The bus driver warned me that the Tekapo area is very windy so to be careful. The ride to Tekapo is about three hours.
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I woke up at 5:00 AM. I'm wired to get my rental motorbike and do some riding! I can't get the bike until 10:00 AM, so I thought I'd go downtown and cash a traveller's cheque. Maybe I'd grab some breakfast and mail a postcard.
I was watching the news: the Labour Day weekend 'Death toll' was seven. One was a motorcyclist - great! It turned out to be a young guy here in Christchurch who was riding at night without a helmet and ran into a power pole. I figure he must have been drinking to do something so dumb.
{After going to Hornby Yamaha to get the bike}
Argh! The motorcycle wasn't there. I waited an hour or so, then was told it wouldn't show up until late in the day. Grrr.
While there I checked out the various bikes. They had three GB500s, a Brit-bike clone built by Honda (not bad looking, I think). They also had three samples of a very strange Yamaha: the AG200. The AG stands for agriculture. It's designed as a two-wheeled street-legal motorcycle for farmers: it had eighteen inch wheels with skinny knobby dirt tires, a single cushy seat shaped like a saddle, a HUGE read cargo rack, a small front cargo rack, and an enclosed chain. Wierd. It looked like it'd be great for rough farm roads though.
I went into town for the afternoon. I caught the bus to the Antarctic Center. Fairly good; a little dry. A humungous gift shop full of overpriced trinkets being bought eagerly by many Japanese tourists.
I went to the Mount Cavendish gondola. It was expensive: $12 for the ride and $4 for the display. It was worth it though. The gondola ride was quite exciting with an excellent view of the city. The display gave a very good review of how Bank's Peninsula was formed from two exploding volcanoes. There was also much detail on how Christchurch was first founded by the Anglican Church in the 1850s.
When I got back to my room, Hornby Yamaha had phoned to say that the bike had arrived and that I could pick it up at 8:00 AM Wednesday morning.
I've been eating meals at the local 'burger bar.' Not very healthy, but at least it's cheap - about $5 NZ on average. Ketchup is called tomato sauce here. The Kiwis have something called ketchup; it's a pinky-red sauce that is made of tomatoes and (I think) red beets. It is very sweet and tangy, a little bit like hamburger relish in Canada.
In the motorcycle shop, I noticed that leather jackets are fairly cheap here. They are NZ-made of sheep hide. A good quality motorcycle jacket can be had for $350 NZ or about $250 CND. I think one will make a very fine souvenir; if I have enough money at the end of my trip, I'll get one.
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I woke up quite early and eager to go. I was at the dealership at 7:40 AM and spent the twenty minutes talking to a guy waiting to buy a new pair of gloves before riding south to Timaru. He was riding a Honda FT400. This is an air-cooled twin standard that looks very similar to the CB250 and CB750. I don't know why they don't just call it a CB400.
Well I finally got the motorcycle, a 1993 Kawasaki EX500 (NZ plate 46 SUB), just like the 1990 version I have at home. It had only 490 kilometers on it! It also had a huge cargo rack. When I loaded up the saddle bags (it also came with a decent pair of these), I had only a few items left in my duffle bag. I crunched this into a ball and used a bungy cord net to strap it to the cargo rack quite securely.
When I first started the bike up, it died as soon as I took off the choke. I had a hell of a time getting it to the petrol station a block away. I filled up the tank, checked the oil level and started her up. It was coughing and sputtering due to the dregs of old petrol in the tank. I noticed that the motorcycle was covered with a heavy film of dust, probably from sitting in storage a long time. When I tried pulling away, it kept stalling. I then realized I'd left the sidestand down. Ahem. Very stupid.
I headed south on State Highway 1 towards Timaru. The speed limit was 100 KM/H, which I more-or-less stuck to. It was the first time I'd been on a bike in a week, so I took it easy. The rear brake was a bit spongy and the gears felt a little notchy, but the motorbike steered exactly the same as the EX500 at home. The road went straight through wide open flat farm land. After about sixty kilometers, we went through Ashburton, a small farm town. Pleasant but unexciting. The weather was partly sunny and about 16 Celsius.
We (we being the bike and me) went over several shallow wide river beds (Selwyn, Rakaia). After an hour or so, I had to turn right for highway 79 to Geraldine. This was a tiny little town of about 1200 that had farm stores, chip shops, and small crafts stores.
Then the road got interesting. I had to go over a single lane bridge with a passing bay. I was about to enter when I saw a car driver come barreling onto it from the far side. After this the road got quite twisty and hilly. (Yahoo!) At this point I saw only one car every five or ten minutes. Interestingly, they were mostly cargo trucks or buses carrying Japanese tourists. I saw no motorcycles off the main highway 1 save one.
After I got through the twisty part, I passed through a small town named Fairlee. It basically had a service station and a corner store. I then went through Burkes Pass. This was very desolate and cold. Gently undulating fields of dry grass, with an occasional shrub to break the monotony. As I was rounding a curve doing perhaps 70 or 80 KM/H, a blue-green BMW R100GS whipped by. I barely had time to notice what kind of bike he was riding when the road straightened up. He poured it on and took off like a bat out of hell. He disappeared doing at least 160 or 170 KM/H.
After a good thirty minutes of boring grass, I was starting to get cold. The temperature had dropped to 6 C or 8 C and it was now clouded over. Finally, I got to the small town of Lake Tekapo. I pulled into my tourist flat, a basic motel room with no linen. I had a sleeping bag so that's okay. $46 NZ or about $35 CND per night. The view of the lake was magnificent. It was a very pale blue like a robin's egg. It was back-dropped by brown mountains that were foothills to the Southern Alps. Their height is perhaps 4000 feet. The top thousand feet were covered with fresh snow.
One thing I'd noticed was that forested hills look funny to my eye here. I then realized why: all the pine trees are exactly the same height, and although they are placed haphazardly, they are evenly spaced. This is because most pine forests here have been deliberately planted for logging.
Talk about your pieces of crap! The rental motorcycle helmet sucks. It's a cheaply-made full-face from some company called 'FFM' - yeah, they're famous for quality . . . It weighs a ton. It's also quite snug and hurts my forehead after a couple hours of wearing. It's an ugly black thing with really cheap decals stuck on it.
I walked over to the Church of the Good Shepherd and looked inside. It's an old stone church built in the 1930s. Very simple and pretty. I also saw a nearby statue of a collie dog used by the shepherds in this region. I was debating whether to ride to Wanaka and spend a day jetboating or ride like the wind to Te Anau and then spend an all-day at the Milford Sound. If I rode to Wanaka I could get there in only two hours. I didn't want to stand around all day trying to get a jetboat ride. The original tour went to Queenstown, which I'd been warned to avoid as it was very commercial. I had to think about it.
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I slept quite soundly last night (from 9:30 PM to 6:30 AM). When I got out of my sleeping bag, it was quite cold - about 5 C or so. I headed out and filled up on petrol. Yesterday I rode 219 KM in about two hours forty minutes. Today I rode about the same distance, maybe less to Lake Wanaka.
The first ninety minutes or so, it was very cold. The land was flat Mackenzie sheep country. I ride through Twizel and Omarama, both very small towns. I got to a range of hills and start going through the Lindis Pass. This was a straight-forward series of switchbacks. I found it pretty easy to negotiate by sticking closely to the recommended speed signs.
I passed four big Harley-Davidsons going the other way in the pass. They waved at me. |
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