Let the adventures begin!

When I first thought about writing this blog, we had recently returned home form a trip abroad, all I wanted to do was travel the world on a motorcycle with Hubby and write about it. (I still want to do that by the way)

In order for you to have any kind of comprehension of how monumental this actually is, I needed to dive backward a bit, which we’ve done.

Now that you are up to speed of the two accidents, it's really time to start writing about the fun stuff.

When Hubby, and I first met, we both had big dreams of traveling around the world on Harley's. We actually had them as individual dreams before we even met, so when we spent time getting to know each other and talked about the things we wanted to do in the future, traveling the world on Harley's exploded for us.

When we first met, Hubby and his buddy had been planning a trip to the states. I had absolutely no qualms with him fulfilling this dream and completely encouraged him to keep going with their plans. They had both agreed on the trip they wanted to do, they were on target to going legit with their full bike licences, (that's a whole other adventure..........)

They decided they were going to be New Zealand's version of the Wild Hog's, ( you know the movie with John Travolta?) They were gonna form their own "Gang" just the two of them, salute each other on the open highways and leave the chicks behind, ya'll know what I'm talking about here. It was so funny listening to their tales of adventure like they had already been. Ha ha ha.

They'd kill themselves laughing with the adventures they were gonna have and the antics they were going to get up to. and I couldn't wait for Hubby to experience all of this with his buddy.

Unfortunately, circumstance of life got in the way, and Hubby wasn't able to go on this much anticipated trip. It really broke my heart to see hubby have to tell his buddy he couldn't go. The trip was had by the buddy and the tour was quickly renamed the "Fuck You Steve" tour, I'll share more about that one day.......

Our first trip away living off and out of a motorcycle, was our South Island trip in 2016,

Accidents either side of this trip, accident one in 2013, and accident two two months after we got back from this trip. You wouldn't read about it right???

Non the less, this trip was such an adventure.........

We'd only been together a little over a year, so this was also going to be a test of how well we would travel together in such close proximity for an entire 7 days. It would either make us or break us. As far as we were concerned, it was going to be nothing but an adventure.......

We knew where we wanted to go, but didn't plan a whole lot more than that.

We ( we being Hubby) had recently upgraded his lowrider 1989 to a 2005 Softail Deuce.

We were traveling in STYLE baby....... we didn't have sadle bags, just a small sissy bar that we strapped a back pack onto. I managed to find all kinds of small crevasse I could pack my makeup into, I even managed to squeeze in my hair straighteners as well. You'd be surprised at what you can fit inside a pair of shoes.

The new bike had to go for a 'break-in ride', and get some k's on the clock. This bike had "suspension", after coming off the ole girl that had NONE, we thought we were so flash.......We were so excited for the adventure, not much more than that mattered.

We headed off to sail to the South Island via the Interislander ferry. This is a 3 - 3 1/2 hour sail across the cook straight between the North Island and the South Island of New Zealand. One of the most treacherous stretches of ocean the world where the Pacific Ocean an the Tasman sea's collide together. Still amazingly beautiful though, especially when you arrive into the heads of the South Island.

Once on the ferry with the bike securely strapped in for the crossing, we headed to the top deck to admire the view, We had a late morning sailing, so the views were spectacular.

We bumped into some friends that were heading in the same direction. They asked us where we were going? Us being us, 'ah, we haven't got plans, we're gonna ride to the bottom of the South Island down the west coast and come back up the east coast of the island'......'oh,' said our friends, sounds like a lot of fun, where are you guys staying?

'Oh, we haven't booked anything, we we're gonna see how far we feel like riding, then find somewhere to park up for the night, we're just gonna wing it, we'll be right....

Good ole Kiwi "She'll be right attitude at it's finest........

Our friends went on to inform us that it was Chinese New Year, this week.... accomodation in the entire South Island was booked out for the three weeks of February, and had been for some time, AND that this was the busiest three weeks of the entire year for the South Island.......Ummmm, we looked at each other, and laughed, we'll be right.... and settled in for the three hour sailing. I might add, that while you are in the middle of the ocean, there is no cell phone coverage, so we couldn't even begin to look for any accomodation.......It's all part of the adventure, you'll come to understand this about us as you read on.

Once you're out of the harbour, there really isn't a great deal to look at from the middle of the ocean, and me? I'm not a good traveler on the seas.......so we loaded up with some food and headed for the movie theatre to pass the time. Not the most comfortable, but it took my mind off the swaying of the ship.

Arriving into Picton, they bike unscathed, we offloaded heading straight for Nelson.

Working on our estimated time of arrival, we should roll into in Nelson, around 4 a4:30 pm in the afternoon. We'd grab some lunch, find somewhere to stay, sort out some dinner and have an early night. The plan to head off early in the morning, officially beginning our adventures.

It's a really pretty ride to Nelson from Picton, we rode over Queen Charlotte Drive.

Queen Charlotte Drive, the road itself running east to west from Picton to Havelock is

33.2 km (20.62mi) long, narrow winding roads with spectacular views and sleepy bays, amazing look out areas you must stop at, at least to get that pic of your bike with the beautiful sea vistas in the background. Be mindful of riding this road in the winter or cooler months, the roads are very windy and narrow, with limited sun on the roads outside of daylight saving can causing mossy and or slippery surfaces.

From Havelock onto Nelson is approximately another hour, you will want to allow time for stops. 40 km's (24.8 miles) of scenic winding roads. the roads are trimmed with New Zealand native forestry and loads of stops along the way.

Rolling into Nelson, stoked with the warm weather and doing well with time, we stop at a set of traffic lights, hubby gives me the bikie left leg cuddle, patting my leg with excitement. Yay, we're officially on out holiday babe. I give him a squeeze back, then we both hear this "TINK' We have headset communications, so we can talk freely while traveling.

(Hubby) Fuck!!!

(Me)What babe?

(Hubby) I've got no gears.........

The lights have turned green, we need to move, I jump off the bike while hubby grabs the gear leaver with his hand and cranks the bike into gear so he can move it.

We find the bolt that had unwound itself, no tools on board, we find our way to a service station to see if they have a crescent we can use to put the gear leaver back together.

And yes, we rode the bike two up with hubby pulling the gear through by hand until we found a service station. Thank you google maps

Bike sorted, and back to behaving itself, our time quickly started to vanish and we hadn't yet found somewhere to stay yet.......

We rode around and around, burning time and fuel trying to find somewhere to stay.

Patients was now starting to fray,

so we pulled up and rang around until we found somewhere that was ok, but cost a small fortune.

Our adventures had begun.

2005 Deuce

All aboard

Getting his bearings sorted.........

Tied down and good to go, sh's not going anywhere!

The old girl 1989 Lowrider.