Day 13 - Mmmm Cookies!

I am the Cookie Monster

Today started with Breakfast in a small town called Rrrrrrrr… nope I'm not broken just think it begins with R and my almost 50 year old brain cannot remember.   Russell! - thats the one!  Bumped into another couple today at breakfast.  The gent originated from Harrogate some 60 years ago by the looks of him.  An Aussie, so I guess part of the mass exodus in the 50's…  Still good to find that yet again on another day a coincidental 'hello' resulted in a conversation that finds a direct link back to good old North Yorkshire.  The World is definitely a small place and us Brits sure have got about a bit.

Right now I'm staring at my feet, and some 8000 miles in that direction is the soles of people I know.  Some arse soles too!  But not that many :-)  And how far away is home?  I do not miss nor pine for it and feel quite comfortable on my one man jaunt around the planet.  I guess nothing less would be expected of an almost 50 year old. 

The Tenere1200 is a tall bike.  On day one I must have looked like an arse trying to get on and off it, left leg on the floor, right leg cocked as high as that of a Yorkshire Terrier peeing against a tree straight after a Great Dane.  And still I get my boots tangled in the handles on the tail pack.  How people would laugh should the bike topple on top of me as I pull it over with my skyward boot.  How I would groan with approx 1/3 tome of jagged metal, plastic and dirty laundry pressing into my nether regions.  So the new method is :  with the bike in gear and on the side stand, like a horse, left foot on left foot rest, grab the reigns, er handle bars, step up and swing right leg across the saddle.  Works surprisingly well.  Just waiting for the comedy moment as I fall off the other side, or, end up facing backwards.  Note to self, LEFT foot on LEFT foot peg.  OK?  Also when in San Francisco learn't a new knot - the something or other (my brain fails me again) - but the same as used by cowboys when tying their horses to a post outside the bank; in that a pull on the loose end undoes the knot allowing for a quick getaway after the robbery.  I will not be using that on the bike though, security matters else 2500 NZ Dollars will trot unabated from my bank should I lose the bike. 

So why am I the Cookie Monster?  Simple.  Today I have been a child in a cake shop with an unlimited amount of pocket money.  I have gorged myself on all that is sweet, good and bad, depending on your taste.  I have twisted more than Fats Domino on a 24hr dance'athon.  I have eaten from the cookie tree and not stopped until all the fruit has gone.  New Zealand's roads are a Jezebel;  she has had me dancing in the streets, delirious with energy, unable to stop.  Care free on empty roads with mile after thousand mile of left right bends surrounded by a  jewel of a countryside.  What should I do?  Slow down and enjoy the view?  Speed up, concentrate hard on the limit point and scrape my toes in bend after bend?  Who cares?  Got to the stage mid afternoon where the camera was no longer used.  It is engorged, full of memories and images that I will look at later because for sure I could not today.  All attention was on the road for fear of becoming part of the scenery.  

I am this evening sat in the bar at the Harbour View Hotel in Raglan on the west coast.  A lot of bikers here too all similarly enjoying what has been a fantastic day in the saddle satiated with the blood of torn tyres and the sting of dislodged chippings on sore knuckles.  

I am not the Cookie Monster.  I AM Spartacus.  No! I am Spartacus! I hear all the other bikers cry.  For sure we are all heroes of the road today.

I think I'll not have a pudding after dinner today Baby!

Speak soon

Note:  Disappointed with Cooks lookout last night - not cheap and just a motel overlooking the bay.  Not close to shops nor restaurants nor bars - shame really as there are a load of motels and places in the town centre with vacancies.  Next time eh?