Ride Report BMW Clubs International Council Conference
New Zealand October 2010
Two Weeks in Biker Heaven by Allen Bullard The time had finally arrived for my BMW Clubs Africa trip to New Zealand where I was to attend the BMW Clubs International Council meeting held in the beautiful tourist city of Queenstown. To be given the opportunity to attend this meeting, even as an observer, was a chance of a lifetime. (More on that later) As mentioned in my short note from New Zealand, the flight there was arduous to say the least, but once there one can now see why the Boks always seem to play poorly in NZ! It took us 5 days to acclimatize. We were waking up at 3.00am to be wide awake as our body clocks took time to adjust to the local time of being 11 hours ahead of SA! David de Bruyn (Board member on the BMW Clubs International Council, Vice President in charge of Christchurch trams Motorcycle clubs world wide) and his wife Rita (you will know them as the organizers of all ABBG rides, including the recent successful Bike Fest in Oudtshoorn) were my traveling companions for the duration. David, who is totally unassuming, is highly respected at BMW in his capacity as VP for motorcycle clubs, and this year has already traveled to Germany and South America on BMW CIC business. David had organized and put together a bike-tour which took five of us around the entire South Island of New Zealand. He planned and organized the bike & car hire, hotels and the route. Then to top it all he led us to believe that he was possibly a Kiwi local as he navigated us from place to place, town to town and tourist attraction to restaurant. In the space of two weeks, we saw it all! On arriving in Christchurch on Saturday midnight, we were wide awake! Forcing sleep is not easy, so at
Christchurch park full of rugby fields!
First Stop - Christchurch 6:00am local time we were all up and raring to go. In the cold morning light I met for the first time Debbie Harbour and Jeff Yost who hailed from the USA. They were to join us on our bike tour. Off we went for our first breakfast just across the street from our motel. It was sunny but a definite nip in the air. The Kiwis were in shorts and t shirts! This was their summer! After breakfast, which was great because it wasn’t airline food, we set off for Christchurch by walking through a park. Not just any park, but a park with rugby fields, cricket pitches and places to run and ride your bike. The Kiwis are definitely mad about sports, bicycles everywhere and people jogging along. We eventually got into the city which is a mixture of old and new, with Christchurch City Centre - no litter in sight! some of the older buildings being damaged and even destroyed by the recent earthquakes. We did see some damage, but it all looked okay to me? We did the tourist thing and walked around taking in the sights. They are definitely rugby crazy here, and know their game. They are very wary of the Boks though – they feel that we will be the team to beat (little do they know that we feel the same about the All Blacks)
Earthquake damage
I always said that I was famous somewhere in the world! I was “dead” right!
New Zealand BMW Owners’ Register “Barbie” Sunday evening was a highlight for us as Warren and his wife Lex had invited us to their home to host a “barbie” for us on behalf of their club. We were royally treated by firstly being fetched from our hotel and driven the 35 kays to their home. About 40 people were there, and I met and chatted to so many great folk – all BMW riders – just like us. In fact, they are so much like our club members that they would just fit straight in. Our hosts New Zealand hospitality - fantastic! went out of their way to make us feel at home by even getting genuine Simba Knik Knaks for us! The food was fantastic and too much once again. Hospitality like this for complete strangers is just the way of all our clubs if you think about it. It was a brilliant start to our holiday trip. A Big thank you to Warren and Lex and all of the New Zealand BMW Owners Register that attended!
Our Hosts Warren & Lex with Allen (Birdman)
Picking up Bikes on Monday! We started our bike trip in Christchurch which is a beautiful city on the West Coast of the Island (You will see me use the term “beautiful” a few times in this article) It was really exciting to get going and ride out of town on the four GeeEsses. David and Rita were on a 1200 GeeEss, Debbie Harbour (President of BMW Riders Association of America) and Jeff Yost (BMW Veteran Motorcycle Owners Association) were on a F650 and 1200 GS respectively. My ride was a fully-kitted GS ADV! I was more than fortunate to be given free use of the chairman of the New Zealand BMW Owners Register Warren’s GSA by doing a bike swap agreement with him – Pretty bikes all in a row! what a pleasure. As you can see from the various photos – I was seriously uncompromised by having the best bike on tour! Fitted out with all the right stuff, including Anakees, we were off!
Jeff Yost
Debbie Harbour Rita & David de Bruyn
Bike Tour of New Zealand South Island
Our bike tour is the “green bit” starting at Christchurch to Nelson to Farewell spit (not shown - but it’s the north top left hand corner) to Arthur’s Pass to Akaroa and back to Christchurch. Our Car tour is the “pink bit” from Christchurch to Queenstown to Invercalgill to Duneden to Christchurch. A total of 3500 kilometres. Getting going was difficult because your natural instinct was to stop and take photos of everything that you saw! Our fist days riding covered 450 kays to a town called Nelson. This was an awesome ride (I will use “awesome” a lot as well), traveling through village after village along the coast. A lot of this ride reminds one of a continuous Chapman’s peak Drive. Twisties galore and scenery to match. You don’t know where to look first, and on a bike you all know that “you go where you look”! You have to constantly be aware that you are riding a bike and not sightseeing whilst seated on a bus!
So much to see, so little time! The speed limit in NZ is 100kph. This (as we found out) is strictly enforced! In fact it is considered anti social behavior to speed. (We’ve got it good here in SA)! So to blend in, we stuck to the speed limit as best as we could, letting the horns come out on the twisty bits. One thing about some of the passes that we rode through is the degree of circumference of some of the curves. If you didn’t look through the corner and practically on the extreme left hand side of the road, Le criminal the chances were good that you would overshoot onto the right hand side into oncoming traffic! There are no double lane highways at all. All roads are single lane like our R103. There are however passing lanes in sections going up hill. The roads are absolutely perfectly cambered, banked and surfaced. This is evident in the quick left, right, left twisties where the camber changes seamlessly. These roads were made for bikes first and foremost. Other vehicles were an afterthought! The scenery didn’t change much throughout out travels. Rolling hills of lovingly tended grassy fields which were naturally mowed on a continuous basis by 53 million sheep and 30 million head of cattle! It is Green! In fact if your can imagine a 450000 hole golf course, you would be about right to say that – this is New Zealand! The South Island is approximately 900 kilometers long and 200 kays wide. We did just on 3500 kays in our travels, so we saw it all! Our fist stop was Nelson. This is a small harbour city/town which is a Knysna/George” type of place. Lots of lakes and beaches and holiday homes. It was here that we saw that in NZ you pay a hell of a lot less for cars than we do! For what I paid for my SLK I could have bought a 300CL! Yep, they import all the second-hand cars into their country and get to buy them (unlike the ones imported into Durban and sold into our neighboring states) New car sales are for “the rich”. In fact we were told by the CEO of BMW NZ who attended our meeting that they sell 1700 new BMW cars a year and only 200 bikes. (I’m sure we would do that in a month)!
Mountains, snow & “feral” sheep! The motels that we had stayed in thus far were brilliant. Well appointed, catering for self service. So, we ate out! We slowly got the hang of the local food fare and beers. Let’s just put it this way – everything is twice the price of what we pay in SA. 450ml beer (not even a 500ml) between $6 up to $7.50 depending on where you are. This in SAR is R30 to R37.50! A steak (which is okay) is $33. (R165!) So, from now on – don’t complain!! Even in the supermarkets, stuff was “expensive”. I suppose that being an island, they have to import most of their goods. Their main export has always been wool and mutton. But as the bottom has dropped out of the world price of wool, the farmers are switching to cattle
A little reminder of home
and dairy. Besides the fact that they grow grass as a crop (not that type!), there seems to be little general agriculture as we see it here in SA. From time to time you see a field of yellow flowers which is apparently canola. Other than this – grass and sheep! They’ve always lead us to believe that Australia were the sheep nation of the world – not on their best day! NZ has sheep! Sheep up that hill and down in the valley. Sheep up the mountain and on every bit of grassland available. Sheep, sheep, sheep. 53 sheep for each person in NZ!
A “wish-you-were-here” picture
We spent two nights in Nelson riding on the second day to the northernmost part of the South island to a place called Farewell Spit. A brilliant ride on all counts! We met some local riders on our trip – really friendly guys who were astounded to see four BMW’s at one time! They were on an Africa twin and a Vstrom. We however did see lots of Harleys and the odd Ducati along the way. Biker country.
Sheep - everywhere!
The next day we set off for Arthur’s Pass, another 400 kay ride. We left after breakfast and just enjoyed the riding. This part of the ride we hardly saw any other traffic and tended to “speed a bit”. It started getting colder as we climbed up into the mountains.
A fine, attack of the Kea Birds and cold water ! Going through towns the speed limit is 50kph. They have devices which measure your speed which is displayed on a digital light-board. So as you approach the town, you can see what your speed is and react accordingly. But, on leaving the town you can speed up to 100kph! After stopping to put on some overgloves, I was riding to catch up to the others when I was stopped by the best speed trapping system in the world! No chance to talk your way out of it. No chance that the cop can let you off. Your speed is instantly recorded onto a computer in the boot of the cop Stopping - again! car. The radar traps you from front or back, coming or going. Any speed over a set limit (107kph) switches on the car’s lights and siren automatically and the cop has to chase you down. A ticket has to be issued to correspond with the stored computer data – no chance of fraud or corruption! Can you imagine this system employed here? Anyway – I’ m now a wanted criminal in NZ! I still have 14 days to pay my $250 fine though (fat chance!) If they do send out a warrant for my arrest and extradite me back to NZ to face the music, I hope its first class! We arrived at Arthur’s Pass just as it was getting dark. We parked our bikes in the front of the hotel and went into the reception. We noticed that they had some “friendly” parrots that alighted on our bikes. “Oh look, there are parrots on our bikes”! The inn keeper mentioned to us that these birds are called Keas (like the car) and there are only 5000 left in NZ, and that they are protected. He didn’t however mention that these birds will gnaw on anything, especially car rubber window seals and nice juicy easy-to-get-at bike saddles! We went outside and the nice birds had had a Bird Proofing - Kea style field day pecking holes in our bike saddles! We couldn’t believe it! We ended up having to take the saddles Darn birds! off the bikes and cover them with planks, bricks, boxes sheets and blankets and anything else that we could find so that the birds didn’t chew on the wiring! Damn – this was a lousy day for me. A fine and now a saddle with holes in it – and it wasn’t even my bike! This put a real damper on things, and then things got worse. The hotel (in the coldest part of NZ) didn’t have hot water – and they never told us this! The only lowlight of our entire trip, but the next day – thing looked up! We told the inn keeper to get stuffed when he wanted us to pay a cancellation fee and left for Akaroa where David had made a booking at a motel using his laptop and internet.
Akaroa - best off-road in the world! Akaroa was an unplanned destination, but as things go, unplanned usually works out to be the best! What a fantastic place! The scenic beauty of this inlet paradise was something to behold. I decided that if there was one place that I would live in NZ – this was it! We arrived at the hotel that David had booked – it was perfect! Right on the water’s edge with a view from here to there! I went exploring on my Adv and soon found myself up in the mountains on a dirt road (the first one). This went on and on, so I went back to the hotel and fetched Jeff. Jeff and I had an afternoon of riding some of the best off-road in the world! That night the five of us finished a few bottles of NZ’s finest wine – not bad at all. It was after all time to celebrate Jeff’s first off-road ride! Akaroa Basin - just awesome!
Jeff Yost is the president of the BMW Vintage bike owner’s association. He rides a K1200ArrTee. What were his impressions of riding a GeeEss for the duration of our trip? “I’m getting’ one” said Jeff. “Best bike I’ve ever ridden!” Well, that about sums it up in a nutshell. Debbie Harbour on the other hand is used to riding her F650 GS, Best off-road in the world! so she was quite at home with “a red one” that she hired for the duration. She just loves it and rides the wheels of her bike in the States. Debbie and Jeff rode behind David who took the lead (because he had the Garmin) and I rode as sweeper. For us Saffas riding on the LHS was no problem, but for those who generally ride on the “wrong side of the road” it was a bit of an ordeal in the beginning. Not only were Jeff and Debbie sorting out riding “new” bikes, but also had to contend with traffic coming from the “wrong” direction. They soon got it right. Jeff however did give me a scare right in the beginning when he opened up his GS and the front wheel lifted. He wasn’t used to the torque! (I think he had a bit of a brown moment).
5 Star Luxury Of all the places that we had ridden to on the bikes, Akaroa was my favorite. We left the next morning (Friday) bound for Queenstown once again to hand our bikes back at the rental shop. We had experienced the best weather in weeks (apparently). I never even took my brand new bought-for-the-trip rain suit out of its bag. The sun shone all the way and the riding conditions ranged from 5º- 15º. The mean average was 10º for most of the trip. If you’re dressed for it, it is quite pleasant riding. I was also amazed to find out that most riders in NZ have heated thermal suits! (We are sooo lucky)! We arrived back at City Cycle rental and handed back the bikes. Those of us with “Kea damage” had to fork over R500 to repair saddles! I only hope that Warren is not too pissed at the fact that the Birdman from SA was the cause of his bike being chewed by damn Kea birds seeking revenge for their feathered friends in South Africa! I did however find a memorial plaque dedicated to me on the City Hall in Christchurch. No really – I even took a photo! We repacked our suitcases at the bike shop and packed everything into the Toyota Previa that we had hired for the rest of the trip. Five of us plus luggage – no problem. We set off for Queenstown in Friday midday traffic. What is it about Friday traffic? It’s hectic wherever you are! After a while we were out of the city limits and well on the way to Queenstown. We stopped at a roadside lunch venue. It was here that David discovered that he had left a roll-up banner that we had schlepped all the way from SA back at the bike shop. It was imperative that the banner be at the meeting were on our way to attend. So nothing for it but to go back and fetch it! AAArgh! Back to Christchurch in the now worsening traffic, pick up the darn thing and head back again. The faupax costing us a full hour. No problem – there was no rush, we were on holiday! We were so lucky that we had chosen this day to hand our bikes back and to travel by car because en route to Queenstown it started to rain! The trip was about 500 kays – same distance as Durban to Johannesburg – but without a six lane highway! Slow progress through the rain and at now reduced speeds, it was going to take time to get to Queenstown. And as we climbed, it got colder. The Our Hotel - nice! scenery was getting more mountainous and eventually we saw that we were now in skiing country! The signboards everywhere indicating this ski slope or that ski village until we arrived in Queenstown. Fantastic! It was dark when we arrived at our hotel where we were to hosted by BMW AG for the next 5 days! It was one of the top hotels in Queenstown – 5 star all the way! From here on, all dinners, lunches and breakfasts seemed to merge into one big feast! Time to pack clothes from suitcases into cupboards and get organized!
The Venue for the BMW CIC, Queenstown - New Zealand 2010
During the following two days being Saturday and Sunday, more delegates arrived at the hotel. Introductions were made and instantly forgotten. There were delegates from all around the world. Amazing to think that there are so many people involved in the running and organizing of BMW “club life” that takes place around the world. BMW are proud of this fact however as they can boast the biggest dedicated marque club in the world with over 200 000 members! And boy, did we make new friends! This report to be continued in the next issue.....Look out for:BMW Clubs International Council meeting. Shotover Jet. Haka Welcome Worlds’ Fastest Indian
Great tour - great friends!
“Birdman”
Jeff Yost
Debbie Harbour
Jeff
Allen
Rita
Debbie David