By Lucy

Excitement! This is my 100th post!

As I thought, the alarm my Dutch roommate set woke me up at 7:30, but I wasn’t overly bothered. I had fallen asleep easily the night before and slept well, and was mostly caught up on my rest. I pretended to be asleep while he dressed and packed, so he wouldn’t feel bad for waking me. As he got ready to head out, I “woke up”.

As I was cooking breakfast, a Maori woman came in – immediately recognizable by her moko kauae, also on her lips, meaning she is fluent in the language – and pulled the cantaloupe out of the fridge. She called it a rock melon. She explained that her family is from the north island, but her dad was buried here, and she’s on a spirit journey because she wants to understand why. I’m intensely curious if she’s one of the rare Ngāti Wairangi, but she’s one of those people who keeps rambling until they leave you emotionally drained and then takes off.

Someone says to just leave the key in the room, so I pack up the bike and take off.

It was cool and cloudy in Karamea itself, leaving just ahead of the rain, it seems. The sun comes out quickly once I am on the road.

As I enter the severe twisties where I can barely muster 40km/h, an SUV starts following me too closely. There’s nothing I can do about it – one side of the road is rock face, the other a sheer cliff, and they lack the willpower to pass me.

Suddenly, I hear the roar of another motorcycle. He passes the SUV and positions himself between me and them and breaks, forcing them to back off and give me space. My hero!

I recognize the bike; it’s Peter.

He gives me an escort through the whole twisties, until we are safely past and I can pull over on a hard shoulder and let them by. He gives me a friendly wave.

A few minutes later, I catch up to him; he’s stopped by the side of the road in Granity, talking to 2 other bikers. I didn’t see him with enough time to stop, but he gives me a thumbs up and a big smile. I turn around and come back as the 2 other bikers leave.

“Thanks for the escort, that guy was making me really nervous.” I say.

“No worries! Hey, you’re really making that bike work! Good handling on those corners.” He smiles. “I saw you drive past and thought I’d catch up.”

I blush. I might not be an experienced biker, but I am good with machines, momentum, and angles. “Off to Greymouth, then?”

“Yeah, gonna stop in Westport and grab a bite to eat.” His tone implies the question, “and you?”.

“I’m going a little past Westport to Cape Foulwind. There’s a seal colony there. And a cafe.” I add.

“Lead on!”

Lead… lead on? Uh oh!

I suppose, the slowest rider usually sets the pace/ the rider who knows the way, as if I know what I am doing. The trip goes fine. We stop briefly in Westport for gas – no more gas until Greymouth – and then head up the coast. We pull over at the seal colony just as a bus load of tourists is heading out, thank god. He orders a black coffee and a muffin. I order a cheese quesadilla, which is literally just a tortilla with cheese inside and toasted. Some days this Kiwi literal-mindedness is maddening.

Then we walk up the path to see the seals. I was internally skipping for joy – after a month of feeling rejected socially, I had met a fellow biker who was not only skilled enough to save me for a tailgater, but was cool with putting along behind me as I tried in vain to reach 100 kms an hour!

The seals had pups – seals give birth in December – and it was adorable and amazing to watch them clambering over the rocks and calling to each other.

He said he wanted to see the blowhole at the pancake rocks. I doubted it was active and I wasn’t keen on going back there again, but he was humoring me, so I’ll humor him. We took the back way around to the highway, and someone stopped to wave us through at a stop sign, which was nice of them. We relayed a bit, wove our way past giant RV’s putt-putting along, and waved at other bikers as they went in the other direction. Biker season was well and truly here, and the road was ours!

I pulled over before the caves I had wanted to go hiking in. The signs before Pancake Rocks are poorly sign posted. As we debated where to go next, a woman came off the Truman track and gushed to us about how pretty it was down there, so we left our helmets behind and went for a hike.

The walk highlights some local, ancient trees, like a rimu big enough for me to build a house in the trunk.

As we walked, I talked to him about the Bay of Fundy and the rocks and tides there, and showed him the picture of the collapsed Sea Lion (which isn’t in the Bay of Fundy, but nevermind that). He didn’t quite understand how limestone rocks and tides worked. He had a good laugh cuz his long legs and big feet let him avoid the worst of the sand, while my small steps kept sucking me down into the sand. I always tell people who haven’t met me in person that I walk like the road runner, lots of short steps, which doesn’t always work in my favour.

The limestone cliffs were pretty. I wondered how long they take to wear down, and how long the chunks had been down for. The tide was coming in and the bay acted like a big funnel, so it was coming in quick and making me nervous.

After we walked back to the bikes and scooted 3 clicks up the road to the Pancake Rocks, he suggested we have lunch and share a pizza. I was going to tell him to order whatever he fancied and maybe I’ll have a wee bit, but then I noticed –

“They have flammkuchen!!!” I exclaimed loudly, bouncing up and down.

He smiled and ordered that.

The flammkuchen was slightly disappointing. It was pretty good except that the amount of bacon on it was so, so small!

At this point I got another email from Yvonne. I should have emailed her sooner – rules of engagement usually dictate sending a “thank you” email within a day or two – but I was so tired and distracted. They were having an event on Saturday and someone had a room for me on Saturday and Sunday.

Sounds good. I wasn’t thrilled about packing up and moving again, but I could probably put my bags in their car instead of lashing them to the bike again.

As we walked out to the blowhole, Peter told me the first members of his family in New Zealand, the early settlers, were farmers in Nelson. But he had noticed they had travelled down to Karamea and farmed there for a bit, so he was trying to follow the ancestral trail.

“You could be self-sufficient out there.” He commented.

Well, you can be self-sufficient anywhere if you’ve a mind to, but you’d almost have to in Karamea. I imagine that road washes out fairly frequently. Land is cheap – build a house, plant a garden, get a couple of chickens and go fishing. It seems like he’s giving it some serious thought, though.

The blow hole is not anything spectacular, although you can hear the tide gurgling away in it. He’s disappointed – told him – and we’re both baking in the hot sun. We head back.

As we’re on the path back, a toddler trips in front of us and bursts into tears. Her parents come to comfort her, grinning goodnaturedly.

“You’ll have one of those some day.” He says to me.

What kind of paternalistic nonsense is that? Unlike Richard, he can’t tell I’m basically 30. Also he’s at least 40, where’s his brood? “No I won’t. I can’t have kids.” I say bluntly.

“Oh.” After a few more steps he says, “You could adopt. There’s no wrong way to make a family.”

Ok, random guy I just met yesterday, thanks for the unsolicited life advice.

Final push, not even an hour back to Greymouth. He pulls ahead and pulls into a home improvement store. He lost his hammer and is tenting it tonight. Once he comes back out, we exchange numbers and go our separate ways.

As I am unpacking at the hostel, I hear a scream of “Lucy!”. It’s Caroline, the woman from the hostel in Haast. She’s off to Monteith’s, so we’ll catch up later.

The hostel is hopping. My 5 bed room has me, a Chinese girl with a metric ton of luggage, some white girl who spends the entire afternoon on her laptop in the room, giggling at stuff and glaring at everyone, and two other German-ish girls who show up late in the evening and have clearly not backpacked before.

The town is bursting at the seams with motorcycles. Every few minutes you can hear the roar from the main road. It makes my heart race.

I walk to KFC for dinner. Caroline and the other workers at the hostel have congregated in the living room, but it’s clearly an employees-only party, so I just sit on my laptop. Around 8 I start getting peckish and feel like a drink. I walk to Woolsworths, but I realize when I got there that I forgot my passport. Maybe they won’t check. I grab a bag of candies, a bag of chips and a bottle of wine.

When I get to the cash, the male cashier calls over a female manager. “Can I see your ID?”

“Forgot it at the motel.”

“I can’t sell you alcohol then, sorry!”

This is really annoying. You know, in New Zealand it’s illegal to give a hostel bed to anyone under 18, but no one’s checking my ID there! Do they seriously think I’m some sullen teenager who wandered away from my parents with a fake Canadian drivers license? Also, what’s with calling the manager? I take my chips and candy and leave without protesting, cuz it won’t get me anywhere.

When I get back to the hostel, the itch is still there. I grab my passport and head back out; there’s a SuperLiquor around the corner.

My accent must be settling on Kiwi, somewhat. I’m noticing more and more that people are surprised when I admit to being Canadian, like the clerk at SuperLiquor. I should grab wine to help me sleep, but Baileys is on sale and I grab that instead.

I stay up far too late drinking Baileys straight. When I do go to bed, after 10 and “lights out”, the lights are still on. The girl above me obviously hasn’t slept in hostels often. Even once the lights are out, she keeps turning her phone light on to look for stuff. When sleep does find me, it doesn’t last long, and I’m back in the living room of the hostel drinking again.

Not that I have a reason to be up at a particular time. The rally starts at 12 and I have no other plans for the day.

When I finally get out of bed, I walk down to Blanchie’s and get the Belgian waffles with bacon. After breakfast, I buy a sandwich to take to the rally. Peter is at Sevenpenny. I debated inviting him to breakfast, but decided I didn’t want to seem “clingy”.

At 11:30, I throw my gear on and head down to the rally.

The rally is being held at a domain, in Canada we’d call it a public park. A bunch of volunteers in hi-vis have set up a tent. When I get there, all I see is the signs that say “pre-pay”, so I stop. A woman comes over to me.

“I didn’t pre-pay, can I still go in?” I ask.

“Yes, you just need to pay over there.” She points to a lane with a guy next to a table.

I pay 50 bucks for the rally. They gave me a bright yellow plastic container that is supposedly lip balm, and a pin with chrome and red detailing.

There’s some people here – obviously it just opened – so in theory I can park wherever I want, but I’m always worried about the unwritten rules. I park next to the sign for where you hop the fence to go to the river, figuring no one would want to be there.

Now what?

I wait half an hour. More bikes show up. Almost everyone has a tent. There’s an ATV with a trailer ferrying people and gear in occasionally. I gather that some MC’s and groups of friends have opted to travel just with what’s on their backs, and one guy follows in a car with all the camping equipment, so all the cars are parked on the main road and the gear ferried in here.

After half an hour, someone points me to the table where the merch is. My goal was to buy a shirt, prove I had the guts to come here, which I guess the pin is too. Still, I buy a shirt as well.

I walk around and take a look at some of the bikes. There’s a few that have replaced their plain wing mirrors with iron crosses. Probably the guys who would be wearing colours if it wasn’t illegal in New Zealand. A bike that was obviously a car engine welded into a custom bike frame (I can’t even begin to understand how or why).

I go back to my bike and perch on the seat, facing the entrance. Most of the bikes tend to come in and do a lap as they decide where to park themselves for the weekend, so I get a free parade. One with a bike dragging a trailer (you can attach trailers to bikes?) pulls right up next to me, tire almost touching my leg, as if he was testing to see if I’d jump.

His name is Sid, and he’s ancient. He knows a lot about bikes, but he also never stops talking. He pulls out a lean-to and shows me the handpies he’s got nestled in the carb to heat them up on the drive.

As we’re talking, I sit down next to my bike and notice the chain is so loose it’s wearing a groove in the centre stand. Hmm, that seems concerning! In a flash, Sid produces an adjustable wrench and shows me how to fix it. As he’s puttering around my bike, he discovers the oil is low… as in, so low it’s not even visible on the dipstick.

That’s concerning!

Follow-up question… how did I get this far without the bike breaking down? Sid is adamant that the level is low enough they would have noticed at the shop in Queenstown, which means they didn’t check at all… which also exposes the fact that I didn’t check, either. Rookie mistake.

What do I do? Do I risk riding the bike out to town for some? I could wander around and ask if anyone’s got any – the domain is packed at this point – but then I’d have to explain why I need it. In a panic, I text the only person who could bring me some, Peter.

Peter agrees to bring me some, thank God, although I would also have been cool if he had just agreed to drive me to the shop to buy it myself.

While I wait, more bikes pull in. Two couples park in front of me and Sid, having little other space to set up, and it’s not like I’m staying the night. There is Carla and her man, both on their own bikes, and I forget his name cuz he barely talked but also, he had a thick mustache and a mullet like my dad (the mullet is alive and well in New Zealand, for some reason). They’re late 50’s/ early 60’s and she’s tough but maternal. The other couple was Sam and his old lady, although he looks at least 40 and she could be late 20’s but looks younger. They both also have their own bikes, but she seems to defer to his direction when she isn’t throwing dry wit back at him. Sid offers me his chair and wanders off to catch up with old mates, so the five of us talk for a bit.

I love the vibe here. Whenever I go for a walk to look at the bikes, people pull me into conversation. No one has anything to say about me being a female, travelling alone, or having a small bike. We just love bikes and hate the cops, that’s all there is to it. Brothers, just like the trade union.

“This is the last one, eh?” Carla tells me.

“Yeah, I know.” It’s not like it’s printed all over the merch or anything. “I keep hearing it’s cuz the council made it too expensive to run.”

“It’s not that – well, it’s a bit of that. But look around.” She gestures to the guys at the front. “They’re all getting old. No one wants to take it over.”

I did notice a lot of old man trikes in attendance. Still, I am not moving to the west coast to run an M.C, if that’s what she’s implying.

At one point someone brings over their pit bull puppy for everyone to coo over.

Peter texts me that he’s on his way and to meet him at the front. Why am I meeting him at the gate? Cuz he’s not coming in, I guess, although I can’t imagine why he would travel all this way, with a bike and a tent, and not come in.

I wait at the gate for an hour, give up and go to the toilet, then back to my spot. Someone mentions a crash at Kumara Junction and I start feeling really guilty. I hope Peter is ok!

2 hours after he said he was heading over, Peter shows up. He stopped to talk to people, go figure. He’s so mysterious, even by “random dude I met on the road” standards. He gives me two 1 litre bottles of oil, and the sticker on the front says 25$ each. 50 bucks for a girl he doesn’t know? I offer to pay him back, but he declines. He does accept the offer for some rally swag, but they’re out. I could also pay for his entrance into the rally, but he declines again and heads out.

I walk back to the group. “He wouldn’t let me pay him back.” I tell Carla.

She looks over the top of her sun glasses. “He’s into you, hun.”

Is he? He hasn’t really been flirty, just nice. He’s leaving tomorrow for Wanaka and hasn’t invited me out for drinks, and basically has 0 guarantee he’ll ever see me again.

“I think he’s probably too old for that.” I say casually.

San perks up, “Hey, it’s working for me and her.” He says, gesturing to his girlfriend.

Now I’m really annoyed at myself. Obviously I don’t really believe that or I wouldn’t be hung up on the Vagabond. I’m just being dismissive to avoid my own feelings. But Peter really hasn’t been flirty! And I wouldn’t mind having someone who was just a friend for once.

We fill up the oil on the bike. It takes a minute; Sam is ostensibly a mechanic, but didn’t know the 150 Shadow only has one oil reservoir. It takes damn near the entire litre, although the second one did seem a bit much. The bike isn’t that big. Oh well, it’s a purchase bonus for whoever buys the bike.

Around 6:30 I head out, mostly to avoid the cops that will surely be patrolling later. I might be acting entirely within the law, but I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them decided to pull me over and make a big issue about my lack of a Kiwi license or something. I notice the bike vibrating; it’s wobbling because the rear tire is no longer straight. When Sid tightened the chain, he didn’t do both sides equally. It won’t throw me… not on straight, flat roads, anyway. Best fixed before I try to cross the Alps again.

I’m too jazzed to be hungry, so I just eat my leftover chips and candy and head to bed.

The next day I eat my leftover waffles and start packing to stay at Anne’s. I eye what I have left for cooking supplies; rice, oil, salt. Will Anne expect me to feed myself? I’m unsure. I decide to take a leap and assume she will feed me, or that I’ll be walking distance to food, and ask one of the staff members where Caroline is.

“Oh, she took off the other day.” She shrugs. “Didn’t like it here, I guess.”

That’s rude of her. “Oh! Ok. Umm, I had some extra food I don’t need, do you guys want it?”

“Sure!”

At 9:50 I’m outside waiting with my bags. The owner’s son and their brown and white spaniel are outside, playing. Every once in a while I glance over at them. I notice them drifting further and further, then I look up to see them disappearing down a side street.

Hmm… some people might believe in free range kids, but that’s a bit too free range. That roads leads to the highway! I go back inside. “Umm, the kid and the dog went down that road, are they allowed to?”

The wife jumps up. “No!” We race outside and I show her where I saw them last. Dog and boy coming running up the road. She scolds him as she marches him back up to the hostel and thanks me.

Yvonne shows up at 10:20. She apologizes for being late, but I’m not bothered by it. Free ride, why complain? I load my one bag and biking gear into the trunk. “Boy, you travel light.” She comments.

I laugh at this. She saw the bike before, how many bags did she think I had strapped to the tiny pillion seat?

Back up to Punakaiki.

We don’t have to be at Anne’s for the event ’til noon, which gives us the better part of an hour to kill. We wander into the information centre, which is new and built on the vein of the Pounamu Pathway place I visited the first time I was in Greymouth. Yvonne gets a discount for being local, so she pays for the tickets.

Most of this is information I already knew, like how the granite of the west coast is young compared to the rock on the other side of the Alps, but some is new. There’s a story about the three wives of a chief fleeing from him to Punakaiki, but their waka overturned and they became pounamu in the bay. Also, the mushroom on the 50 dollar bill is a real mushroom called the blue pink-gill, which is actually as sky-blue as the bill itself. There’s a room with screens all around and a vent on the floor that sprays you with water and wind, imitating the effect of standing over the active blowhole, which Richard and Yvonne find terribly funny.

After we’re done, Richard orders a coffee – he is forever drinking coffee – and we hang out for a bit before heading not even 5 kilometers down the road to Anne’s vacation home. I’ve learned that in New Zealand, a vacation cottage is called a “bach”. Theories differ; some think it’s short for bachelor pad, other’s that it comes from the Welsh, although the Welsh bach refers to an outbuilding.

Anne reminds me of Anthea, right down to the close-cropped silver hair and stern manner, but whereas Anthea was steely-eyed and business-like, Anne has a grandmotherly vibe. She talks in a loud voice and has a booming laugh, but makes you feel warm and fuzzy. Her and her husband have a little grey froo-froo dog called Lulu.

There’s a group of around 20 ladies who all brought food for the potluck. The husbands stand around in the backyard talking about fishing while we have tea inside and discuss business. I’m the most dressed-up person in attendance; Yvonne teases me when I finally let my hair down, literally. Anne takes great joy in introducing me as the “carpenter from Canada” and then telling them I bought a motorcycle, how scandalous.

After we have lunch and dessert and I am so stuffed full I want to have a nap, everyone asks me for a speech. I hesitate less than when I did for the North Canterbury club. I’m becoming the mask.

Around 3 everyone heads out. Goodbyes here take much less time than in Canada. Anne and Richard seem to be waiting for something, so I ask to walk down the road to the cave I kept driving past. It’s not much to look at, but it’s clearly very deep. You can go spelunking there, the sign even says so, but I’m in a sport coat and nice pants, so I walk in as far as I dare so as not to get dirty.

When I get back to the bach, a woman who lives on this street, named Bev, drops by, and Anne tells her to take me to her bach down the highway 5 minutes and show me the view. On the drive she makes a few comments about the composition of the rock and I add to her comments. She looks at me sideways, “I knew you weren’t just a carpenter.”

Is anyone just an anything? But I suppose, those well-trained lawyer eyes. The view is nice. She comments that the rata is blooming more strongly than it would most years. Maybe I’m allergic to rata!

Back to Anne’s place. Everyone is across the road; one of the other Soroptimist ladies has a Bach here too. The two gals go out to grab pizza from the Pancake Rocks restaurant, and I hang around, feeling like I got dragged out to my mother’s friends place, welcome but purposeless. The second floor has a spectacular view of the giant whitecaps rolling in ahead of the rain, and part of the interior wall has been taken down for renovations, so I check out the work.

Around 6 we have dinner. I’m still full from the very big lunch we had, but I make myself eat as much as I can. I’ve been subsisting on less than 2000 calories and mostly instant noodles and eggs for more than a week; time to catch up.

We don’t get back ’til past 8 o’clock, and it’s dark and rainy. We stop at the hostel so I can move my bike, just throwing my leather jacket on over my sport coat. They have a carport, so I park the bike at the back and throw it up on the centre stand.

Once inside, I unpack and we sit at the table to have some tea. I find a growing affection for Anne already.

I retire for bed early. It’s been a long day, and I have a food coma coming on. The bed is covered in stuffed dalmatian toys I have to dig through.

What is this feeling? This feeling of family, people being nice for its own sake. Anne opening her home to me when she didn’t even know me. Peter helping me on the drive back from Karamea and with the oil. Of course, this could just be good fortune coming back to me – I’ve been giving everything away for free for a good long while – but it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like being rewarded for being myself. While I was gracious, I wasn’t being “authentic”, as the kids say. Now I have let down my guard, people are letting me in. Maybe that was the secret the whole time.

Still, the kindness hurts. Who knows when I will see Peter or Anne again, if ever? And yet I have such affection already, and a sense of wanting to return the favour.

I sleep well for a bit, but around 3 I am up again. I pour myself the rest of my Baileys, then a glass of water. Anne wakes up, fortunately after I’ve filled the glass with water.

“What’s on your mind?” She asks, as she makes herself a tea.

What isn’t on my mind? This is like purging after food poisoning, throwing up to get the toxic material out, except it’s my heart and my mind. What to do in the interim, except be lost, confused and nauseous?

We talk a little bit, but if I let too much out we will be up far too late. She heads back to bed quickly and I do shortly afterwards.

It is nice being here. Having space and privacy again, not having to worry about food again. The fortnight of travel was nice, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t obsessing over my dwindling bank account balance and that’s a potent form of anxiety. But now I’m on the other side; all I had to do was coast until I got to the estate, and then I’ll be sorted.

I have cornflakes for breakfast. Turns out Anne and her Gary (not to be confused with Simo’s Gary) work for Shantytown. They only have the one car, so we drop Gary off at work and then head down to Hokitika. She calls a friend on the way and we pick her up and head out to the gorge.

The river washed out the bridge a while back, so we didn’t get far along the trail. The two of them talked about business while I was lost in thought. I am less than 20 kilometers from Raureka’s Pass over to Canterbury. My spirit ancestor and her journey over the mountains. Not for the first time, I marveled at how the estate was at such a spiritual, central location, and how fortunate I was to have been there.

We went back to her friend’s place for tea. Her friend is very travelled and has a wall of masks from various cultures, which I am jealous of. She also has these interesting mountain climber decorations.

Around 2 her friend had plans, so we headed out. We stopped at a cafe for lunch and ran into more people Anne knows. She seems to be the grandmother of Greymouth. We ordered sandwiches and the staff were ok with Lulu joining us on the deck, which is good cuz it finally started raining. Then we went on to Shantytown.

Quarter to 4 was the last train of the day, which is Gary’s job; he’s the “conductor”. I don’t recall him working there the day me and Jen went, but I do remember the large engineer. Since Anne is on the board, we get in for free and chat with Gary while the train is stopped.

Dinner is at Bev’s place in the city; her sister and brother in law are joining us. In addition to whitebait fritters, salad, buns and more, we’re also having the exclusive crayfish, the equivalent to being treated to a lobster dinner!

I had been having some quibbles over having been essentially kidnapped when I could be boozing it up at the motorcycle rally, but I decided this is good, if not directly comparable. I am enjoying being fussed over, Anne is very personable and we clicked right away. I was actually starting to debate trying to stay here for another couple of days, but I shouldn’t impose.

We got back to the house sometime between 9:30 and 10 and I went right to bed. As I retired, Anne jokingly called, “I’d better not find you up in the middle of the night again, young lady, or you’re grounded!”

“Yes, mum!”

Monday. Finally, the day to pack up and head home back to Simonetta’s.

I rinsed out the empty bottle of Baileys and left it by the sink, Richard disappeared it before Anne got back.

Simonetta asked me to come by at 6:30 or thereabouts, although Anne and Richard needed me out by 1 cuz they were going out. It would take me 3-4 hours to get back to the estate, plus stopping time.

Anne and Richard gave me a gift before I left. It was all I could do not to burst into tears. They also made me lunch, some sausage rolls and a slice of cake.

I headed out at noon. The first thing I had to do was stop by the Honda dealership. I had tried to adjust the tire myself, but it’s hard to do with minimal tools. Richard convinced me the dealership could adjust it in 5 minutes and probably for free, so I went down there.

“Just bat your eye lashes at them!”

Shut up, Richard. Doing the pretty girl thing rarely works for me. I think it’s the edge in my eyes; I don’t really do doe-eyed. He also tells me Mount Hutt was white this morning, which means it snowed all the way down to Lake Coleridge. Gulp!

They were on lunch, so I waited. It took them about 20 minutes to fix the alignment, which including hammering noises for some reason.

He wheeled it back out front. “It needs a new chain and sprocket, soon.”

“I’m leaving for Christchurch.” Also, I don’t quite believe you.

“It should make it there, but get it done as soon as you can.”

He wanted ten bucks for the adjustment, which just seems like nitpicking, but sure. Then trouble struck.

No tap.

“I’ll run across the road to the gas station and get cash.” I said nervously.

He nodded.

I knew my card worked at the gas station, but turns out, you need a chip and pin to get cash out, which means it also didn’t work for this. Peter was long gone. Anne would have left her place by now…

Crap. All for ten bucks!

I went back and hung my head. I tried to explain the situation to him, but he just cursed a blue streak and told me to get out, which seemed rude, again, for ten dollars! The thing that bothered me most is that it makes me seem like some ne’er-do-well trying to nickel and dime him, but why lie for ten bucks? Jeez!

I emailed Anne and asked her if she could swing by and pay him, and she said she would. I offered to pay her back, but she declined. It occurred to me that I probably didn’t need to and I had no way to check if she had, because I wasn’t going back there, but I felt guilty.

Starting my day feeling terrible, yay!

The drive down to Kumara Junction and up towards the Alps is uneventful, mostly flat and straight. Then we start winding out way up into the pass. Multiple signs warn that it might be hard for a vehicle towing a trailer to make it. Through Otira, which is just a couple of gas stations and restaurants. The wind was cutting and felt damp now, and it was overcast.

The ascent comes on suddenly, which makes sense, but it wasn’t that sharp for me. More nerve-wracking was the fencing and even canopies over the road to catch rockfalls. Most of the way up the pass there is a few lookout points and I stop here, which was slightly tricky because it’s a sloped gravel parking lot. The bike was fighting me and some guys came over as if to help me catch it, but I waved them away and managed to get it settled without dropping it or accepting any help.

The Rata are just blooming here. The cold alpine air must delay their season.

This also marked the first time I’ve seen a kea in real life. There was one posing for photographers, and another one determinedly trying to eat every car in the lot. I didn’t dare stray far from the bike, lest it take a chunk of my seat.

Another couple of clicks and I was over the top of the pass. From here, I had travelled this road before. Arthur’s Pass, cross the Waimakariri, down to Castle Hill and then Springfield, and I will be back in Canterbury.

It was really cold here. My knees started knocking off the gas tank, I was shivering so badly. The last time I was this cold on a ride was 2 months ago, in Dunedin.

I stopped when I rounded the corner for Castle Hill. The fire… I forgot.

The burn scars were still there, black and crisp against the line of green where the fire had stopped. I pulled over, flabbergasted by the destruction. So close to me…

When I got to Castle Hill proper, I stopped again. I’d had a plan to sit here for an hour or so, have a snack and a drink, visit the rocks, so I could arrive closer to 6:30 for Simo. But it was too darn cold, so I headed out after half an hour. Stopped in Springfield for gas.

I kept going to Darfield, actually. I picked up some tea at the grocery store. I wanted to get the paper form for selling my bike, but they didn’t have any; told me to do it online.

And then I was on the home stretch…

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.”

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

For a while I’ve wondered where the line is that separates “person with motorcycle” from “biker”. I’m still not sure where it is, but I’ve definitely crossed it. I’m feeling a lot more comfortable with the mask that is becoming my face; being a biker, being a vagabond. Starting to see more of what matters to me, my identity, and why.

It’s nice.