Recollections of journeys hopefully never forgotten
It was during one of
my frequent and often prolonged telephone conversations to my friend
during which he proudly stated that he had just purchased a new 'ten
speed' cycle and would be riding to Ngaruawahia, a township a short
distance from our home-city of Hamilton. In a huff of envy I snorted
at him the relative lack of wisdom in such a purchase. After all,
what could be achieved with such a specialist cycle other than racing
around in circles? It was late in the seventh decade of the century
recently past.
What followed was several years of two friends, despite attending very different school locations, planning cycle trips of ever extending magnitude for the various holiday periods. Such planning was quite noticeable in the lack of concern for prevailing weather conditions such as heading across bush covered ranges like the Mamakus at the onset of winter.
Cycling in the fog and drizzle in typically summery cycling attire was one unwise aspect of these journeys but fully laden and otherwise logging trucks hurtling by in these conditions was a safety aspect our youth relegated to just 'one of those things' you had to get used to. Such traverses were ubiquitously through forested and hilly terrain.
Often very scenic when you could see further than a few hundred feet in any direction. Great in summer, if you could ignore the heat and the melting tar dragging at every pedal stroke on your over laden wheels. This was certainly a friendship that was founded on mutually held values!
It was on one of
these trips across the Mamakus, in noticeably more clement weather
than previously referred to, that we had one of several encounters
which in some way or another had an influence on us both as people
and friends. As we were traveling through Fitzgerald Glade, we saw
ahead of us a middle aged Maori gentleman emerging from the bush edge
and begin to gather up his aging single speed cycle. We stopped to
chat as travelers are often wont to do.
As it transpired
this gentleman whose name has, unfortunately, passed from my memory
was undertaking a challenge to cycle from Auckland to Wellington. His
attitude and humour struck me as especially admirable when it was
discovered that he was a recent dischargee from service in the Royal
New Zealand Infantry Regiment, an ambition of mine for many a year
before. We offered him some of our fruit juice fortified with
glucose.
While initially
reaching for our proffered vessels, he withdrew his hand and stated
that water alone was his preference. He would find a stream he said.
Here began the demise of our youthful fixation with the energy
elixirs we had been attempting to find. After all, it had always been
available from our taps and the wellsprings of our minds. We would
meet this fine fellow only briefly for one more time on our journeys.
Kia Kaha Friend!
This time, on a return trip from Wellington, we were assailed by a furry Australian over stayer. We had stopped at a point on the Napier ? Taupo road said to have hot pools available as indeed there were, although not such as we would have expected.
After several inquiries from the locals present we wandered down a track between patchy gorse and bracken to find a partially constructed and occasionally used bathing shelter comprising two concrete block baths with natural hot springs issuing forth into them and finally disappearing trough the overflow to the river valley below. A lovely vista indeed. The baths themselves were of somewhat crude construction but this in no way detracted from the benefits to be had from the soothing mineral waters on two tired and aching bodies.
Full of appreciation of the
waters and the cost we strolled happily back to our camp site under a
spreading macrocarpa tree and prepared our evening meal. It was as we
attempted to achieve a much needed sleep that the fiend struck.
Clambering noisily around in the tree above, sending carefully aimed
detritus and other unmentionable products at our tent.
After a period of grumbling and cursing from us both, things eventually settled and we proceeded to sleep. Sleep, that is until my bicycle was sent crashing to the ground. Our rapidly searching torch light beams catching the beady red reflections from the eyes of the culprit peering from above the saddlebag of the disturbed bicycle. The critter, thus itself disturbed, then seemed content to pad stridently, if quadrupeds can be described as moving stridently, around our tent and occasionally taunt us with the horrible chortling challenge of Trichosurus vulpecula.
Continuing on, I
will describe an important personal event occurring towards the end
of the southward leg on our journey to Bluff. It was somewhere in the
vicinity of Clinton, State Highway One rolling over the foothills to
the Southern Alps, where my motivation and commitment to this venture
Russell and I had undertaken flagged.
My grumblings and weariness
were sporadically displayed in fitful irreverent comments to my
traveling companion. No apparent heed was taken by Russell until at a
rest stop I seriously confronted him with my plan to avoid the
drudgery and toil of the return trip with no loss of glory to
ourselves. It involved a leisurely train trip back up the country.
Not an especially cunning plan but simply by means of alighting at a
more southern station than Hamilton, it would still allow us the
apparently triumphal return of the travelers to cycle into our
home-city.
I quite naively made the crass statement that 'no-one would know!' to which he replied in a matter of fact one, 'I'll know'.
All further conversation and thought of quitting ceased with that simple statement.
I was fifteen years of age then, and the shame of that weakness of will on my part is still one of my most powerful motivators. Albeit, only Russell's strength of determination made it so.
I wish I could recount more.