Then came the issue of what could we use as a prop between the swing arm and the body. Although we were stuck in the middle of this farmhouse gateway, there must not have been any one home as we were not bothered by any vehicles coming through, so we figured that there was no one home at this point in time. We could not find any stray bits of timber we could use, and rocks off the low wall were of no use so I looked into the left hand pannier in the vain hope that there might be something in there. All I found was a wooden handled claw hammer that I carry for hitting in tent pegs. It was just the right length!! I fitted it on top of the swing arm and under the wheel arch. As the sidecar body is all fibre glass, I was not sure just how the head of the hammer would take to the layer of fibre glass as I had a brief vision of it popping through the fibre glass once the weight came onto it. (this did not happen). I taped the wooden handle to the metal swing arm, fitted the wheel back on, tidied up our gear and very carefully did a U turn and headed back to Mataura at a speed of up to 50kph at times.

It was now almost half past eleven and an hour after we had stopped there that we were on the move again. Avoiding any potholes or bumps as we went along, waving other vehicles past us when it was safe for them to pass and pulling over into a gateway on the odd occasion to let big trucks go pass. Keegan got my cell phone out of my jacket pocket and sent a text to Terry about that we are heading back to Mataura. Meantime I am doing some mental work on just how we are going to resolve this issue so we can carry onto Waimate. I the end it came to a piece of 50x25 box section bolted under and across the chassis and under the swing arm. Then we bolt the swing arm to the box section and simply lower the sidecar wheel air pressure to allow for the bumps. It will be easier than any other idea I could think off. And so, we slowly made our way back some 21 miles to Mataura by 1220 hrs. We had scarcely got off the bike when Terry turned up with the trailer. The loading of the bike and sidecar went well with me riding it up the planks, untill suddenly the sidecar wheel mounted the side rail and the whole outfit leaned suddenly to the right! It was too late to stop and so I just carried on untill told to stop.

It was the tying down part of the operation that caused the next issue as Terry wrapped a strop around the rear wheel and between the cast spokes. Of all the spokes that are on the wheel, he happened to pick the one that had the tyre valve in between. He tightened up the strop and there was a sudden bang and a hissing of escaping air and the profound statement from Terry, “now you have a flat tyre as well’. He could not believe that of all the nine spokes that are on the wheel, he picked the one that had the tyre valve in it.
 


I have a spare rear wheel with a tire that I had just got fitted onto the rim on Monday. This was a second-hand tyre and about half worn that some unknown person had dropped off to my workshop in the middle of last year. No one has claimed responsibility for doing this, but they knew that I could possibly use it for the sidecar bike.

Terry and I discussed the repair options on the journey back to Browns and he was all for welding a bar across but that would mean undoing certain electrical wires and I was not really keen on that idea. He gradually came around to my line of thinking and he stopped in at his other house at 6 Settlers Road to pick up a bit of a chassis that I had dropped off to him quite some time ago for him to use the steel out of it. It had the right bit of 50x 25mm box section that we needed.

Into Winton and reversed up my driveway to the workshop, much to a surprised Maree. I shifted the van out of the workshop and out of the way.

The unloading went well untill the sidecar wheel had to drop off the side rail and onto the plank. That was when we lost the hammer support and a bit of muscle power had to be exerted by Terry and Keegan to get it down onto the plank. We had to unload all the gear out of the sidecar, lift the body off the chassis and Keegan held the chassis up while I reversed the bike into the workshop.

Terry had to take the trailer back to Browns. Meantime Keegan and I set the chassis up and we got things sorted and I made some cardboard templates of the bits of flat plate that we would need, and lengths of bolts required.

Then Terry came back and put his engineer mind to work and began stripping the surplus bits off this bit of box section and he is using my angle grinder with a cut off blade in it as this is the engineer way of dealing with steel. I would have just put it in the vice and used the hacksaw with a 24 TPI blade as it would have been almost as quick. In the end he went away to Steve Geary Engineering in Winton to get the bits of flat plate and bolts, while Keegan and I took off the rear wheel.

Terry came back with the plates and bolts, and we set things up and marked where we needed the bolt holes done and he took it all back to Browns so he could accurately drill all the bolt holes.

Keegan and I took the wheel up to Winton Motorcycles and picked up the spare wheel. I was going to leave the wheel there to get a new valve fitted but I saw that the spare rim had no brake disc fitted for some reason. So, we took both wheels back, changed over the disc and fitted the spare wheel back in. I had found a small top box side light had a blown bulb but was unable to find any spare ones in a hurry in my cupboard of bits, so I jammed it back into the holder, poked it back up into its place in the top box side and carried on fitting the last of the fairings on.

With time to spare, we went and proceeded to remove the solo bike’s rear wheel with me being able to coach Keegan as just what to do and he did get all off.

Terry came back shortly after we had started to do this and so I left Keegan to finish while I went out to help Terry,. Terry and I proceeded to make it all fit. The gaps between the bolts and the side of the box section I took up with a bit of plywood that, once cut to the right size, was gently hammered into place to ensure less chance of any unwanted movement.



Then came the time to fit the body back onto the chassis, load all the gear back in and meet Terry back at his place to start the journey all over again at ten to six.

On the way I could feel a small knocking coming from the front wheel??? I thought that it may have been bit of a bulge in the side wall of the tyre, (having had this experience once before) but it did not feel like that. Then I thought about what bolt could have come loose and be hitting on something as it spun around, but it did not feel like that either after some time. I did notice that the knocking eased a bit around left hand corners. Pulled into Mataura to put some more air into the front tyre but that did not alter the sound much at all.

And so, on we rode untill we came to Mosgeil where we both needed to refuel at twenty past eight and get a bite to eat as we had not eaten much all day apart from some ‘mouse traps’ that I had made up last night. I jacked up the front end and spun the wheel around and, putting my hand against the fork down by the axle, I could feel a light rumble through the right-hand fork, but none on the left hand one. So, it is the bearing that is worn out. We decided to carry onto Waimate, but by the time we had travelled along the motorway and down to the traffic lights at South Dunedin, I had chickened out of carrying on as the sound from the front wheel was like someone was in there with a steel hammer hitting things very hard. I had mental visions of the whole thing collapsing and causing more damage to the extent that it would make it very hard to do an effective repair.

We turned off the motorway and into Caversham where I pulled over and stopped. I rang Stuart Hoffman, in Mosgeil, about the possibility of him having a bearing that might fit, but none of his Motto Guzzi or BMW stuff would be likely to fit. He did give me a couple of names of likely bearing stockists to try in the morning.

I lead Terry around to Carolyns place after I had rung her in Christchurch, to see if we could stay at her place for the night. That was ok and once she had given me the number for the key lock box, we were away.

Once there I opened the house and then the garage door via the remote control, parked up our bikes inside the separate double garage and then made ourselves at home inside. We set too finding a local Honda dealer being carefull not to get a Honda car dealer. I sent a text to Gary about a Honda dealer and back came a reply about Honda in Mosgeil. We duly Google Mapped it, and I knew where it was away out in Duke Road. It was nearly eleven o’clock before we hit the bed after such an eventful day. It had taken us some twelve hours to get from Winton to Dunedin, a journey that we would normally allow only three hours.

Saturday 2nd March.

I awoke before the other two even though I had slept in untill half past five. I thought about what Carolyn had said to me last night about all donations of chocolate being gratefully received. I had some Whittaker’s mini bars of chocolate in a small tin in the top box as well as a bar of chocolate. I got them out of and proceeded to spread them about her cupboards and under her tins of alcohol in the fridge and the bar in between the two pillows on her waterbed with a little note written on it. I left two on top of her Microwave so that at least she would see them easily. I had thought about putting one in her 2 litre bottle of milk that we had opened but decided against it.

( Later when Carolyn arrived home on the Sunday evening, she sent me a text that she found bits of chocolate all over the place and likened it to an Easter Egg hunt)

After we had eaten some breakfast, we went out to the garage, and it was Keegan that first noticed that the Goldwing’s rear end was sagging somewhat. The rear tyre had gone flat??? We could not find anything in the way of a small compressor in the garage, but Terry had a small hand pump in his gear.

I had sent a text to Chris Jones who lives not too far away about a pump, and he rang back about having one and he would drive around shortly with it. Meantime Terry was busy with the hand pump, and I am walking a couple of blocks to Yony and Ynys place and Tony has a pump that will plug into a cigarette lighter socket. I just happen to have one of those in my left hand glove box for use in charging a GPS or a cell phone. I walk back with the pump and plug it in. The gauge showed that Terry had managed to put in some 10 lbs of pressure by hand. I pumped it up to 3000 Kpa, just as Chris arrived with his rechargeable battery powered compressor. He said that we could take it as he is going to the March Hare as well.

 
With the tyre pumped and the house and garage securely locked again, we headed off back south over the motorway to Mosgeil and the Honda shop. We passed by the Aurora Café that was now open at half past nine and where we had planned on having lunch there yesterday.

The Mosgeil Honda shop is large and new and well laid out with a large area out the back by the three bay workshop where I parked up. We went into the showroom area and spoke to a guy by the name of Sax. He did his thing on the computer and was able to find us a set of wheel bearings but no seals. This did not bother us as it is the bearings that we really need. Obtained permission to use one of the workshop bays and a trolley jack and proceeded to remove the front wheel with our own tools. Having our own tools was something that surprised Sax as well as the speed that Keegan and I removed the front wheel.

Terry found some workshop tools with a bit of help from the young mechanic that was working this morning and the worn bearing literally dropped out with only a light tap. The not worn bearing on the left hand side came out reasonably easy in one piece, but it took us some time to get the outer bearing race out of the wheel housing. We even applied a bit of heat and in the end, I used a spanner handle to hold the drift down onto the edge of the housing while Terry hit it out. The new ones went in readily enough with Terry’s skills at doing this sort of thing coming into play.



Meantime, Keegan had announced that he could hear air escaping from the rear wheel. Once we had the front wheel sorted, we jacked up the rear end, let all the air out, and put in a whole Tyre Pando of repair goo. Pumped the tyre up to 40 psi and started up the engine and used first gear to spin the wheel around at speed to distribute all the goo for a minute or so. When the wheel stopped, we watched in amusement as a piggy tail of goo escaped and sealed up the small hole in it. For some reason I wiped the piggy tail off before taking a photo of it. None the less, we were gratefull to have it all fixed and we used the smoko room facilities to have a hot drink after I had paid for the bearings and the two tyre Pando’s, one of which was for Terry as he felt the need to carry one ‘just in case’.

It was eleven o’clock when we left the Honda shop, and I did notice that the whole outfit almost seemed to glide along the new road surface so much easier as we headed for the Three Mile Hill as a sort of back way into Dunedin. This route is a main way from Dunedin to Mosgeil and I much shorter that going via the motorway. My idea was to take Terry across some of the ridgeline and down into the Leith Valley and out to the motorway north. I have been along this way on Summer Safari’s in the past, but the memory recall would only work so far and in the end, I had to make my way down into the north end of George Street. I should have simply gone out to the motorway from here, but I could not help myself as I came to the Leith Valley Road and turned into it. I was not sure of Terry’s ability to ride gravel roads, but I took a chance on it. The winding road is bitumen for so far up and once over a narrow bridge halfway up the hill, the road turns to a fine gravel. A couple of bends later and we have lost sight of Terry? I stop and wait for half a minute and then turn around and go back. I find him still on the first bend after the bridge, bike parked up on the inside of this wide bend and a small bit of my front wheel fairing lying in the middle of the road. I pull over to a stop on the outside of the bend and Keegan goes and picks up the bit of fairing. It is one of those small bits that are a rubber grommet fit and I am prone to losing them occasionally. It transpires that Terry had stopped to pick it up and found what he thought was a safe spot to stop but lost his footing on the loose gravel and the bike just fell over.

While we were there he carefully rode to the outside of the bend and parked up again. He made comment about the loose gravel and seeing as how we are now both facing downhill, I decided that I will now go back to the motorway to ride out of Dunedin. It was when I went to select neutral to start the bike, that the green neutral light would not show regardless of me shifting the lever. I did notice that the temperature and fuel gauge needles were sitting in the off position. Then there was no response from the starter button as well?? Luckily the Goldwing can crash start really easy and thus that is what we did.

Out of Dunedin I realised that it had taken us an hour to get from Mosgeil to the Pine Hill and the start of the motorway. I just rode the state highway to Oamaru trying to work out just how I was going to unlock the fuel cap without having the need to crash start the bike at the Z ed forecourt in Oamaru. As we were riding down the hill into Oamaru, I turned the key and extracted it, and the clock did not go off and the engine was still running as I unlocked the lid to allow access to the fuel cap. I put the key back into the ignition and carried on to the Z ed station where I parked at the pump futherest from the where the cashier was in the store. I left the engine running the whole time, something that one should not do, but this was a bit of a situation I was in. Refueled and Keegan went in to pay for it with my money while I filled in the petrol log book, and then we moved on.

Once in the rally site at the Waimate Showgrounds, we set up our tent close to the usual place and set up the STG banner as well. A few of my friends had made comment about how my absence was noted on Friday night.



Then we made a start to find out where the short was that stopped the starter motor from working. I found a fuse, fourth up from the bottom, that read Tail, and the 15 amp fuse was blown. There was a spare in the fuse cover and so I fitted it in and everything worked again as well as the lights and the starter motor. That bit of success was tempered by the fact that we had still not found the cause of the short that blew the fuse.

Sometime later I decided that I needed to go a buy a Lotto ticket and some milk at the local New World Supermarket. Once out of the rally site, I noticed that the dash indicators had gone back to zero again, so I knew that the fault was still in there somewhere. I headed to the garage to buy some more fuses. I left the bike running while I went inside to have a look and I was feeling a bit discouraged as I could not find them readily untill the young female assistant asked me what I was looking for. She pointed me in the right direction and as there was no one else in the shop, she came and showed me. I took the last five of the 15 amp fuses and took five 10 amp ones as well.

To the New World, brought the Lotto ticket and milk and out to the bike, replaced the fuse and it blew as soon as I turned on the key. Meantime another rider with a female pillion had parked next to me. She went to the supermarket, and after having blown a second fuse I briefly explained to him the issue and could he give me a push for a crash start. We pushed it out and faced it on the slight downhill slope, enlisted the help of another young male who just happened to be walking through with his girlfriend and the start was executed without much effort at all.

Back at the rally site, Terry was having a sleep and I made a serious start on trying to locate the cause. I sent a text to Richard in Kaitangata explaining the situation and could he give it some thought for me. I lifted the seat off and started poking around and nothing was looking like it was the cause. Richard rang me and started talking about the wiring as he had the diagram up on his computer. Meantime Terry had awoken and came out to see what was happening. At one point I gave him the cell phone while I did something else. Then I was asked to take the bottom cover off from under the top box, the same one that we have to remove when we take the rear wheel out. Four screws came out and I gave them to Keegan to hold, removed the cover and down dropped the small bulb holder that yesterday had held a blown bulb. The severe bump as we were riding through Dunedin must have caused it to drop out and the two wires had made contact and blown the fuse. We taped the ends separately, fitted a new fuse and all was well again! If we were drinking men would have had a few beers to celebrate our success, but we were just glad to get the issue resolved.



Terry’s Harley attracted a bit of interest from guys that knew a bit about such bikes and at times he was engaged deep in conversation with these guys.

Chris, from Dunedin this morning, was also having issues with his bike brakes and other bits and so was going to leave his bike with the home mechanic in Alma, just south of Oamaru, to get these issues sorted. He was going to get his wife Tania to come and pick him up but I told him that I could take him home in the sidecar. But it transpires after he had spoken to Tania that she was coming up to drop off some washing for her adult daughter that had left it with Mum to wash for her as their washing machine had broken down. Anyway, Chris is still going to ride home with us. And so ended the two day saga of getting to the March Hare Rally. I have not had a saga like this for a very long time. Someone said to us that memories are made of this sort of thing to which Terry replied that we have enough of these already.

Sunday 3rd March 2024.

Daylight came upon us in a dull sort of a way and the threat of high winds and rain had guys packing up and leaving like about 0700 hrs and a bit earlier to try and beat it all. I recall there was a bit of wind during the night but no rain. We eventually got our gear and tent all packed up and ready to go by 0830 hrs. And so with Chris riding along with us, I led the way out of Waimate via the Waihao Back Road and out onto SH 1 and headed south to Oamaru. We made our way through the town and once up on the top of the hill, Chris took over the lead to make sure that we got to the right place in Alma. He turned off into a gravel driveway marked by a Rawleigh’s sign. I rode up and Terry just parked up on the hard surface outside the driveway. Because we had so much spare stuff in the sidecar in case it rained, Chris had to sit in and then we covered his legs with the spare gear.

On wards we travelled and came into Palmerston via the scenic route of Trotters Gorge. I stopped on the edge of SH 1 to point out to both Chris and Terry the house that my parents had built in the late 1940’s with a soldiers rehab loan. The place has a carport and trees that were not there when we left in 1961. On to the car park at the public toilets at Palmerston for a break and a walk around. We removed the soft top of the sidecar so that Chris could experience that part of a sidecar ride as well even though he would have to wear his crash helmet to keep his head warm.

While we were here a large V8 trike rode in and parked up. I did not see the rider get off the trike but did see him walk very stiff legged to the toilets, almost like his knee joints refused to work. As he left with his back up vehicle behind, Terry made a remark about how it appeared that the front wheel nuts were turning and the noise that they were making. He said that the front wheel bearings must be sized to the axle.?

On into Dunedin without any traffic related incidents but we did notice that there must have been some rain around during the night as there was the odd puddle of water on the road side occasionally. We did see the odd traffic cop out and about and so were just a bit more wary of our speed than we would have normally been.

Our first stop in Dunedin was at the BP gas station on Cumberland Street/ SH 1 to refuel. The red reserve light had been on for some 9 miles and I put some 21 litres into my 24 litre tank. I had done 127 miles for that amount which is about normal. By now the sun is out as I made my way to South Dunedin and to Chris’s house. We stopped there for a hot drink and a warm up in the sun before we carried on minus Chris.

We had bit of a traffic incident coming into Balclutha as I made my way up the inside lane of the passing lane going uphill. There were two Ute’s in front of me with a reasonable sort of safety space left between us. Getting near the closing end I could hear a set of tyre noises beside me, but all I could see in my mirror was Terry sitting some distance behind me. Then a silver SUV type vehicle pulled into my view along aside me, going fast to get into the gap in front of me. Lucky for it there were no oncoming vehicles appearing from the bend ahead. To add to the mix I was aware of some other motorcyclists a bit further back in the line. It was a tight line of traffic that made its way up hill and down dale into Balclutha.

I saw Terry put on his left hand indicator and so I pulled around to the left onto the Southern Scenic Route and the Z ed service station, I got off the bike to ask him what he wanted. He needed a piss and to allow for that line of crazy traffic to get away ahead of us. He told me that the other bikers he could see behind him that they were itching to pass me every time I slowed a bit.

By the time we left the Z station, the traffic had cleared but as we came around the first bend, we passed the V8 trike parked on the side of the street. It looked like it was minus its wheel nuts and so I pulled over and spoke to Terry about this. So he did a U turn and went back to see what was going on. He was gone for a few minutes and we he reappeared again, it appears that who ever built up the front wheel, has failed to put a spacer between the two wheel bearings.

When we came to Clinton, we parted company. Terry kept on SH 1 to Gore to visit his daughter and Granddaughter, while just made our usual turn to the Old Coach Road. We passed the egg stall and the side suspension did not collapse and we made it into Mataura and a stop by the park and the toilets. The V8 trike rider rode past and he gave us a wave of acknowledgment as he did so.

There was a bit of wind blowing as we rode across on SH 96 to Winton. It was a rather nice warm day though. Into Winton to refuel and back home to unload the sidecar, hang out the tent to dry and just sort the gear out. I did not take Keegan back to his home as I would normally do, because on Monday I have to be in Invercargill at 0730 hrs to meet up with my grandson Dylan for a three day school camp at Camp Columbus.

And so ended the most epic journey to a bike rally I have had in 30 years.