Nelson Boulder bank
Far steeper than it looks , this was anything but easy .
ON THE RUN Here , I report , I made an error . I watched , following behind an idiot in an Outlander overtaking on blind corners and over double yellow lines , and I confess my heart was in my mouth several times . Opting to get past this dangerous dickhead , I saw a long strait and whistled by him quite effortlessly , albeit somewhat over the limit . As I passed I suddenly saw double yellow lines , and was pulling back over them , berating myself for doing exactly what the F-wit had been doing , when a police car nosed over the hill . I was on the wrong side of the road , not dangerous , but certainly over the start of the double yellow and with some speed on . My heart skipped a beat , and I waited for the sound of the siren and flashing lights in the rear vision . I rolled on , fearing the worst ,
Motueka River hosts
and trying to figure out how to tell the guy the truth without sounding like I was making shit up to get off . He never showed . It was a genuine mistake on my part and I was horrified to find those lines in front of the Outlander . I took the Cable Bay turn off , I ’ d never been to Cable Bay , I reasoned . Then realising that I ’ d look very guilty if found avoiding cops , I rode back out and waited for the man in blue to arrive . He didn ’ t . I rode quietly on to Nelson and Stoke , and then over the glorious dry hills of Gardiners Valley , the playground of my adolescence and young manhood days , towards Motueka . Surprisingly , I found the journey quite emotional from this point on , remembering farms where I ’ d worked , lost friends , and Semaine ’ s Boysenberry Wine in the heady , smoky summers of the 70 ’ s . Cricket matches and the Whole Earth Catalogue . The search for magic mushrooms and jimson weed , time spent among hippies , communes , and hedonists , with art , sex , and music as aims , amongst the bush , fields and grasslands , in the mountains around the great glorious Motueka River , and all with that endless surging promise of life ahead of me . Also present , in those far off days , of course , was the fear of not ‘ doing ’ anything with one ’ s life . Of not measuring up , having nothing to offer , of worth . I was in tears of remembering when I rode slowly up my friends driveway ... to the wrong house . The owner must have thought some escapee from an institution had arrived , trying to explain himself and find the proper location , with moist face . A phone call , a couple of hundred metres back , and I
KIWI RIDER 105