Hamilton - Whangarei - Hamilton

Christmas 1992

This is a tale set in the later years of the 20th Century. I was married to my first wife, petrol was fairly cheap and the only vehicles I owned were a defunct 1966 Puch SR150 scooter and a 1954 Zundapp Bella 154 scooter that was in pieces in a friend's garage - after nearly a year and a half of "being restored".

My wife at the time, Clare, wanted to spend Christmas with her parents in Whangarei - 290 kilometres (180 miles) away from Hamilton where we lived.

Clare and I discussed the options and quickly decided that it would cost far too much to hire a car but it would cost significantly less to buy the few remaining parts required to complete the Zundapp's restoration. There was, I figured, enough time for me to complete the work in the evenings after work and on the weekends.

As the bike was a 150cc scooter with a top speed of 45 miles an hour, we decided it would be best to travel to Whangarei in two easy days rather than one long day.

Maureen, who had kindly loaned me space in her garage for the duration of the project, was not convinced that I would get it assembled in time - or that it would run if I did - but she arrived home one sunny Summer's evening (Christmas is in Summer down here) - the Saturday after the last day of work for the year, in fact - to find the assembled bike parked in her driveway while I installed the twin batteries in their compartments on either side of the steering column.

"I told you I'd get it finished in time," I said.

"Have you tested the engine?" Maureen asked.

"Not yet, I've just put the batteries in."

"It probably won't work, it hasn't been running for over a year."

"Mate," I said, assured of the excellence of German engineering, "it hadn't run for longer than that when I got it and it started first time."

With that, I turned the key in the new ignition switch and pressed the new starter button. The starter motor whirred, the engine turned over a few times while it sucked fresh petrol through the carburettor then the engine fired and rumbled into life.

Elation, pride, a certain degree of smug "I told you so" - these were the emotions that flooded through my body. Relief wasn't there - I knew my bike... damned near every bolt on it, now.

Maureen was quite gracious about being proved wrong so I didn't rub it in.

The next day, Sunday, was an End-of-Year Christmas party at my boss's house so Clare and I went on the newly restored Zundapp. My boss, who was familiar with the bike prior to the beginning of the restoration project (I had ridden it to work frequently), was most impressed with how it looked. He was astounded to learn that we intended to ride it to Auckland the next day and then to Whangarei the day after that.

The next morning, Monday 21 December 1992, I loaded up the bike with stuff we had packed the night before. Strapped to the frame at the rear of the bike was a pack and my mandolin and I had affixed a sign proclaiming "ON TOUR" to the back.

In addition to the luggage on the bike we had two smaller packs. Clare had a college bag that she wore on her back and I had a slightly smaller pack that I wore on my chest.

 We set out from Hamilton in fine weather and the bike performed beautifully, humming along the open road at a stately 45 miles per hour. I kept close to the side of the road to let faster traffic past where possible and the other motorists seemed to be quite courteous towards us, possibly because of the obvious age of the bike and the "ON TOUR" sign.

I do not recall how far we got, but suddenly the engine died and the bike coasted to a halt. I tried starting it and the engine turned over but there was no spark.

With great presence of mind, I had packed the tools where I could reach them easily so I extracted the spark plug and inspected it. There was a piece of something jammed in the spark gap so I used my pocket knife to flick it out. I put the spark plug back in and hit the starter button - the motor roared into life instantly and we were on our way again.

Further up the road, the engine died again. Again, there was something jammed in the spark plug. Again, I cleaned it out and put the plug back. Again, the engine fired up instantly and we could continue.

After it had done this a couple more times, it occurred to me what it was: sand.

During the process of restoring the bike the tank had been sand-blasted clean and then painted. Unfortunately, no part of the restoration process had involved me emptying stray sand out of the tank and we were now paying the price for my carelessness.

We fell into a routine of stopping every so often to remove sand from the spark plug. I kept the plug socket and knife in my jacket pocket and the process didn't slow us down too much.

We reached Auckland by way of State Highway 1. The high point of the journey for me was as we were going up the Bombay Hills just south of the main Auckland motorway and actually managing to pass a truck that was labouring up the hill - it was the only thing I had seen that day that was moving slower than we were.

We turned off at Manukau City and made our way out past Wiri Station to Mangere where my friend Sally lived.

We stayed at Sally's place for the night and Sally gave me directions to get to Albany without going over the Auckland Harbour Bridge as we did not think the bridge would be safe for a slow vehicle such as the Zundapp.

The next morning we continued on our way. Again, we had beautiful riding weather. Again, we had to stop from time to time to remove grains of sand from the spark plug.

The bike ran faultlessly between stops and seemed none the worse for having sand pass through the carburettor, cylinder and exhaust.

As we travelled North, we approached the infamous Brynderwyn hill that we must pass to get to Whangarei.

I had been told by an acquaintance that the bike would have great difficulty as the hill was very steep and monumentally tall. He estimated that we would probably be reduced to a crawl in first gear and that it would be very hard on the bike. He was not sure that the bike would be able to make it up, loaded down with two adults and all our gear.

Finally we reached "The Brynderwyns" and stopped for a rest at the bottom before tackling the arduous ordeal that lay before us.

After I was suitably fortified with a cigarette we set off again. The Zundapp climbed up the hill and the speed dropped a bit but we kept climbing. I was waiting for the road to get really steep and prepared for a long haul.

Suddenly and without warning, it happened: I saw a sign saying "Summit Café 400m" and it occurred to me that either the folks hereabouts had no idea of the meaning of the word "summit", or we really were only a quarter-mile from the top.

The second possibility very shortly proved to be correct and the Zundapp accelerated as the slope levelled off and then we found ourselves descending. The acquaintance had been totally wrong about the hill, but I suppose you can't expect much from a person who kept pronouncing the place as "Brendoo-ins".

We continued on our way to Whangarei, stopping occasionally for rests, food, petrol and to remove sand from the spark plug.

I remember that wherever we went people were amazed at how far we had travelled on the old scooter. In one town, a guy dressed as Santa, who looked old enough not to require the false beard, was quite impressed with how the bike looked and how far we had travelled.

We reached Whangarei with no major problems.

This is what I looked like in 1992:

We spent the next seven days with Clare's parents and celebrated Christmas with them. At one point we rode out to see the picturesque Whangarei Falls and took some photos.

On Wednesday 30 December 1992, we left on our return journey. We opted to return via a more coastal route, taking in Waipu Cove and Langs Beach.

We rode through beautiful scenic roads surrounded by native bush and the weather would have been the making of any "Summer Holiday" movie.

Somewhere along that road, we ran out of fuel and had to switch to "reserve". I had no idea of how far it was to the next town or if the bike would make it and we were quite a way from the last town we had passed through.

We discussed the situation and decided that the safest course of action would be for Clare to stay where we were with our packs while I took the bike back to the last town to get more fuel. I figured that with only one person on the bike, it should make it on reserve.

I rode back into the previous town without running out of fuel and filled the tank with the appropriate mix of petrol and two-stroke oil then returned to where I had left Clare.

We continued on and returned to Sally's house in Auckland.

The one really sour note of that leg of the journey happened on the motorway to the north of Auckland right after the outside lane had been blocked off with huge portable concrete barriers.

The engine died and I was pressed hard up against the barrier with the bike resting against my leg trying to extract, clean and replace the spark plug in record time while a huge truck bore down on us.

Clare was terrified we'd be killed as the truck driver seemed to show no inclination to slow down. Then the heat from the exhaust pipe, located under the left hand foot platform, finally made its way through the various layers of leggings, boot and socks and my leg became uncomfortably hot.

The next day we headed back home to Hamilton.

As we made our way down the motorway south of Manukau, there was a strong wind coming across from the ocean and the bike was being buffeted quite badly. I ended up reducing to a crawl and had to fight for control of the bike. It was quite a relief when we got to the Bombay Hills and were sheltered from the wind.

The rest of the journey to Hamilton was uneventful and we made it home safely.

The next day I took the tank off, drained the remaining fuel and cleaned enough sand out of the tank to throw a beach party.

The journey had covered 438 miles and cost around $14 in petrol and two-stroke oil.