Darryll and Helenna live in a town about 40 minutes from Auckland. I was greeted with the same openness and warmth I had experienced across N America.
A little later, while Darryll prepared some dinner, Helenna insisted I sit and put my feet up. I wasn’t too hard to convince as I was exhausted after 56 hours travelling and a 27 hour flight. Mistake! When dinner was ready, she had to wake me up; I know how to make a good impression! 😁
Next morning, 14 Jan, I got a message that the bike had passed its biosecurity inspection and was cleared for collection. Darryll kindly offered to take me in his truck to collect it. The process was quick and soon we were in the warehouse wondering how best to load the bike. We had a ramp, but the back of the bakkie was quite high resulting in a steep slope. The solution was to borrow another ramp and use some pallets:
Off loading was somewhat easier with the slope of Darryll’s driveway.
I immediately set about getting the engine out in order to try to resolve my oil leak. Darryll meanwhile occupied himself with constructing an engine stand to make my life easier. A masterpiece, it was better than anything I had made previously!
In no time I had all the necessary parts removed, and the next step was to get the engine out. With the aid of some threaded bar of the right diameter, we managed this, relatively, easily and soon the engine was sitting on a crate ready to be transferred to it’s new stand which was at just the right height to work on. I can’t tell you how happy I was with this, as my back and knees are not what they used to be and crawling around on the ground is now a painful process.
When we, John and I, had fitted crash bars in Ontario, we had replaced one of the engine mounting bolts with a length of threaded bar, and , when buying the bar this time, I decided that, since there was a machine shop attached to the shop, this would be a good opportunity to replace this with a proper bolt. More about this later.
By the end of the day, I had to head off and it was ready to go to the machinist.
15/16/17 Jan 2025
Having dropped off the head, I now had a couple of days free which I used to clean up other parts, look for a new tank bag and do some research on leaving New Zealand.
I had picked up a “Belfast” patch while visiting at the end of my last trip, and I found someone who could sew this onto my jacket. This sounds simple, but having identified the lady, actually finding her proved somewhat more difficult. Once I managed to make contact, she agreed to do the job immediately. It turned out that her Mother was from Belfast, and if I describe her as loquacious, I’m sure she wouldn’t disagree, or be upset. The sewing took 15 minutes, but over the next hour and a bit, I got her life story, a description of her dealings with NZ’s biker gangs. She was the go-to person for these bastions of society, to have leathers repaired and patches made and sewn until the wearing of patches was made illegal. Now she still makes patches, which can no longer be displayed, and clean, i.e. with no patches or other gang insignia – vests for the guys to ride in. I also got a lesson in Mauri pronunciation.
When I finally took my leave it was thanks to a call from the machinist to say the head was ready for collection. I duly did this and then went next door to collect my new bolts. I got the shock of my life; the new bolt cost me NZ $234,09 , or € 126,80! Apparently it take 1½ hours to cut two threads 17mm long in a piece of steel rod 🤨?
The manager of the workshop wasn’t there to discuss this with, but, I’ll be going back on Monday.
I had planned to visit Nashville when in the US, until the cost of a weekend there seemed excessive. So when I was asked if I wanted to accompany Helenne and Darryll to a Luke Combs concert in Auckland, I couldn’t say no. So I got to visit the home of NZ rugby and the All Blacks. The concert was an experience, only spoiled somewhat by the girl who insisted on screeching, at the top of her voice, along with the songs and the couple who insisted in standing up immediately between me and the stage. But, hey, for a fraction of the cost, Nashville came to me! 😁
Belfast-2-Belfast-By-Bike 