Day Thirteen – Chasing a Harley

Somewhat anxious to leave, we are up early and cognizant of heavy clouds but we absolutely want pictures at the very tip of the South Island with the signage declaring it Land’s End. As we stand and marvel at the sign with distances from places we know like Capetown, London, and New York, it comes as a small epiphany just how far we are from Kansas, Toto. It is just dawning and between a heavily clouded eastern horizon and another lower cloud bank, the sun’s weak rays skewer the morning sky with brilliant shafts of red-orange, giving me just enough time to snap a photo of it backlighting the ancient lighthouse on the point. A beautiful sunrise counts as a good omen and we head off north having passed the midway geographic point of our NZ Trek. Everything now will lead back to our friends Rick, Judith and our new friends, her parents, Ann and Ray Clarke.

There are many stops before the end of this tramp but the first is Gore, the country music center of New Zealand. Luckily (or unluckily) we arrive in the middle of the one week they are holding the Golden Guitar Awards and the main street is packed with buskers plying their skills. Kris stops to listen to several of them and quickly whispers to me that Nashville is not threatened. The incongruous sight of cowboy boots and ten gallon hats in this out of the way little town does not mask really bad versions of Waylon and Willie. She does however spot a sign advertising the National Sheep Dog Championships the following week. I need to show her the cost of changing a return ticket to the US and remind her that Babe will probably not show up. She snidely says to me, “That’ll do Pig,” before reluctantly getting into the Toyota Puke.

I leave just as quickly as possible aiming the car towards the mountains once again. The sun shines brightly and the snow capped peaks beckon. An uneventful several hours slip by except that we have been passed at great speed by a number of motorcycles. More in fact, than we have seen the whole of the time we have been here. As the day winds down we climb another damn mountain right into a cloud. Visibility drops to 15 yards and my speed drops accordingly but of course my heart rate climbs proportionately. Kris is okay with this since she can’t see how high we are and how steep the road drops off into the valleys. We have a destination in mind but I decide I do not want to chance driving in these conditions in the dark and we stop at the only small town that has listed accommodations. It is named Twizel (tuh weye zell) and I think I have found another Knob’s Flat.

The only available room is in a barracks that were originally built to house workers for the huge hydro electric projects in the area. The room is depressing and also our first less than wonderful place but it IS clean. Both of us decide a couple of beers will improve our assessment of the night’s room choice. The one side of the bar is packed with bikers warming themselves in front of the monster fireplace with many pints of Speights as they discuss the huge NZ-wide rally they will all attend the next day. The opposite side of the bar is packed with rosy cheeked twenty-somethings looking too damn healthy for my taste. They are here for the NZ National Rowing Championships. Are all NZ championships held in June I wonder? Certainly explains why there is no room at the inn to be found in this dreary place of 600. We opt for the biker side of the bar and converse with Stewart and Tim, a couple of middle-aged bikers from Christchurch who are totally impressed with Kris’s I-Phone pictures on her with Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Madeline Albright but could not care less about the one of her with her good friend who just happens to be one of the owners of Harley-Davidson Motorcycles. They are Honda men. I drink another pint of Speights Dark. Stewart highly recommends we make a short stop at Mt. John Observatory on our way north. We take it with grain of salt coming from a biker riding one of those Japanese sewing machines. Just flying the flag for you here in NZ, Tim Hoelter, where apparently your Harley is chasing a few Hondas.