December 11 2011
My 11yr old Daughter Zoë joined Me, Marc (Suzuki TL1000S) and Bill (1975 Triumph T160) on my leg of the SOHC Round the world relay.
Two first generation Superbikes and a Modern..
We set out at 9.30 for the rendezvous point, and the first coffee of the day, Paekakariki.
So we hit the road, we had a brief stop at Otaki to check my messages, there we got the sad news, Nancy's Honda was a dns.
From here the trip turned to complete farce. Marc decided to give the TL a bit of a squirt, so at a set of passing lanes we were treated to the sound of his 1000cc V twin at full noise. He says he did not exceed the speed limit by much, Bill and I suspect otherwise. Our national limit is 100km/hr (60mph in the old money).
Now we all thought Marc knew that he had to take the major turn off the main road (SH1) clearly sign posted onto SH 57 which would take us to Shannon. SH1 would take him to Sanson.
Nah we watched helpless as he sailed straight on..
Eventually we decided to push on I sent Marc a text and we headed to Shannon.
As Nancy has mentioned the weather was almost perfect we ran into the easterly about 5km out of Shannon, but they were nothing to worry about, sounds like Hush had all the fun the weekend before.
We lunched swapped stories of the perils of restoring and riding old bikes and watched a passing parade of bikes, seemed everyone had the same idea as, us spend Sunday on a bike!
But we had Godzilla!!
Eventually Marc turned up to some totally warranted hassling..
So after the photo shoot the handover was complete and we headed south, Nancy followed us to Levin.
Handover from Nancy
On the way home traffic and temperature rose so I decided to head home by the Paekakariki hill and 16km of twisties and the first 3km has a 250m change of elevation. Fun
Top of Paekak Hill
While Godzilla was with us he had a good time.
He spent a couple of days commuting with me to work before we had our Christmas break.
Christmas day he spent with us at my brother's house
He tried out a local brew
Checked out a couple of "Barn finds" a 960 Japauto and a K2. Both are to be restored the K2 lightly cafed
Tried out his best lines on one of the locals
Boxing Day he headed over the Rimutaka's to the in laws for more eating and drinking. He did not seem to concerned that he had to travel behind the screen of a Honda Odyssey (Lets call it a GL2250)
January 4 2012
Once again Zoe accompanied me to meet up with Scunny who was coming up from Picton on the 8 o'clock sailing and returning the next sailing, so we had an hour to fill in.
It worked out well, Scunny had to be at the ferry terminal at 12.30 and Zoe had to be at Westpac stadium to be part of the honour guard at the Wellington Phoenix vs Sydney FC A league game, practically across the road at 12:45.
We hit the nearest Mcd's for a coffee and cakes (well Zoe had a cheeseburger and cake!) and as usual we swapped stories.
We were interrupted by the antics of a motorist who appeared to be having difficulty doing a parallel park into the bay next to our bikes. Well he was driving a road roller! I went out to ask if he needed the bikes moved but as is the usual over here his reply "It's all sweet" Drama over!.
So after a couple of photo's Godzilla headed south comfortably strapped to Scunny's Retro Racer CB650 with Hushes well travelled bungy.
Thanks to the coordinators for giving us down under a chance to participate and we are all better off having Godzilla pass through! Roll on 2012 tour!
Total kms/miles Godzilla travelled on my 1977 CB750 176km 110miles
