When I last wrote I was about to spend my third night in hospital. It’s now five days later it’s Sunday the 9th of March.
I got my first pictures of the bike from the trucking company and from these it seemed that, like me, the bike has got off quite lightly. I made my first contact with the insurance assessor and we agreed that as soon as possible I would get him some further photographs of the bike to allow him to make a final assessment.
I was finally discharged on Tuesday without the need for further X-rays because by that stage I was able to weight-bear and walk quite reasonably without assistance.
I was discharged into the care of a new friend Rosie McGrath who is the sister of Adele McBride’s brother’s wife – work that one out if you can. Rosie lives in Greymouth very close to the hospital, and said that I was welcome to stay for as long as necessary, this in spite of the fact that she had some friends coming to stay for a few days.
Rosie’s friends, Gary and Philippa, arrived on Wednesday, and that same afternoon Carrie very kindly offered to take me to the truck park to see my bike. From this inspection, without removing anything other than the remnants of the windshield, I concluded that she was repairable.
Almost all of the damage was to the front end: the fairing was destroyed; the headlight also, while the indicators had taken a battering; the instruments had been damaged – the tacho had sort of exploded; and the tank got a couple of dents. The most obvious thing was the deformation of the handlebars – they were bent totally out of shape and in the process the left switch and mirror had been detached.
The good news was that the engine protector, fitted way back in Ontario did its job; sadly, in doing so the left one gave up its life. The engine was unscathed, as were the exhausts and other parts. The luggage on the left side did suffer a bit and some replacements will be necessary.
I sent the photographs to the Mike, the assessor, and he came back to me fairly quickly with his initial assessment that, whilst the damage was not catastrophic, it probably was sufficient to warrant writing the bike off, due mainly to the cost of parts. I wasn’t overly surprised and took the night to think thins over, while Mike, waited on a scrap resale value from an auctioneer.
On Thursday Gary and I headed up to Ross Beach campsite where had left my tent. We found it already taken down by the campsite owners. It rained quite heavily one night and Jane told me that everything inside had been soaked. She had kindly hung it all out to dry.
We packed everything into Gary’s car and headed down to Hokitika where we had a coffee sitting outside the cinema and watching the world go by. I took the opportunity here to stock up on some bandages and stuff because my wounds were not looking too good and clearly needed a bit of TLC.
Every year, Hokita hosts an art festival where people come and make things out of the driftwood that covers the shoreline. We took a little stroll to see the raw material.
I had a further discussion with Mike that afternoon and learned that, in light of his further review of the photos I had sent, his assessment was that it was uneconomical to repair the bike. Mike had agreed with the auctioneer on a resale value of $3000 so that meant I would get the sum assured less this amount plus the excess of $250 if I wanted to keep the bike.
With that settled it was now up to me to recover the bike from Greymouth on the West Coast over to Dunedin on the East Coast, where the repairs will be carried out. This is a little more difficult than anticipated due to the rather isolated position of Greymouth on the West Coast. Whilst as I write, I’m waiting to hear back from a few transport companies, it’s looking more and more like I’ll have to hire a trailer and ask Davey to come over and pick me up.
I spent part of today, Sunday, taking pictures of the damage to my riding kit to submit those to the insurance company and making arrangements to get my jacket repaired by Leslie at the Blue Moon Leathers in Auckland. You may remember that Leslie sewed on my Belfast patch when I was in Auckland earlier. Conveniently, Gary and Philippa live very close to her and Gary has offered to drop it off for me.
I’ve also ordered a new pair of jeans from Hood Jeans back in the UK and Mickey Quinn who’s going to visit his son in Australia in a couple of weeks has agreed to bring them out for me.
On that note the plan now, is to get the bike and myself back over to Dunedin, make a proper assessment of the damage and, assuming all is well, a list of parts needed to repair same. Then, as previously planned, I will head over to Australia to visit Belfast and try to source some of the parts.
The coincidences continue; Mickey and Elizabeth’s son, Owen, lives in Melbourne and has kindly offered to give me a bed for the few days that I’ll be there. Mickey has suggested that he and Lizzie will join me on my trip down to Belfast which should make for a good day out to the seaside. 🙂
So, things are moving forward; a little bit slowly perhaps but going in the right direction; my battery runs out mid-afternoon and I have to have a wee rest, but it’s improving. Tomorrow, Monday, I will focus on trying to arrange for the bike’s return to Dunedin. The main thing though is that both me and the bike, whilst having suffered some damage, are not totally out of action; things could have been much, much worse!
Over the week I’ve received numerous messages of support and encouragement from all over the place and I’d just like to register my thanks to everybody who has reached out in my hour of need. I won’t let you down, guys; the show will go on and like Odysseus, I will get there in the end!
Belfast-2-Belfast-By-Bike 