Realising how riding motorbikes up very steeps hills can cause a lot of pain

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Sorry for the huge delay in writing this blog but having been in Thailand for 4 weeks and trying to find a job here in Auckland I have been lazy and just haven’t got around to typing it up. So here I am on my final stage of the Magic bus journey before heading off to Thailand and what a painful week it was.

So after only 3.5 hours of sleep and a pretty rough hangover we departed Wellington and headed north towards the sunny coastline of Hawks Bay aiming for a finally destination of a pretty little beachside town of Napier. Napier is apparently very ‘art deco’ but having no idea what that meant, I was still none the wiser as what to expect.

Although suffering a bad hangover I did still managed to speak non-stop to one of my friends for the first 2 hours of the bus journey, apparently I didn’t draw breath (I know some of you would find this hard to believe) because as we were sat at the front of the bus the driver had accidently left the microphone on and so everyone on the bus could hear are whole conversation for the entire two hours till we stopped at our first rest place!! Luckily I wasn’t talking about anybody in particular or I really could have got myself into trouble I did feel real sorry for everyone else that couldn’t sleep because of the constant drone of my voice though!

Half way on the journey to Napier we stopped at the Tui’s Brewery which surprisingly enough brews Tui’s beer, which I think is one of the better New Zealand beers. Once we turned up, we were given the option to buy 3 glasses of beer for 2 dollars, now I thought these were going to be 3 very small glasses just to try a couple of the different beers but unbelievably there were 3 big full size glasses - what a bonus, three big glasses of beer for around 80p!!! There’s no better way to properly get of a hangover than too drink more beer!! With the added bonus that I knew I would then fall asleep on the bus and consequently not have to worry about the next 3-4 hours of the bus journey!

As for my mate Dan, he was still feeling far too rough from the previous night and as much as I tried to persuade him that he would feel much better after having a beer, he decided he couldn’t face it so stayed on the bus asleep not even wanting to walk into the brewery - ha ha lightweight!!

Well finally arrived in Napier that afternoon, the journey look a lot longer than we all expected and by the time we arrived we were all tired, stiff and well ready to get off the bus. Dan and I decided we needed to stretch our legs and so went for a small walk which ended up being over 3 hours long, I think we must have walked the entire length and breadth of the town were we found a cool little waterfall, numerous parks and even a little rocky beach where we found these big suspicious looking bones, which looked human size, so decided to turn around and got out of there there asap. On our way back we found Alison walking around and then ended up do the whole walk again minus the place where we found the bones to show Alison the waterfall and other interesting sites we discovered over the past few hours!!

We then all decided that we still hadn’t had enough walking by this time (now around 5 hours after we first set out on a little walk) and so walked up to the top of ‘Bluff hill’ to get a view back over the harbor and coastline. We were luckily enough to get up there just in time to see the sunset. It was the first sunset I had seen in ages and as you can see from the pics was really quite nice, all though I have to admit the camera was sort of on a red setting so wasn’t quite as amazing as the picture shows!

Also during this walk Alison explained a little bit about art deco, it style and it’s significance etc, so afterward this small lesson both Dan and I felt like ‘art deco’ experts, so for the remainder of the walk we were both trying to guess and bullshit our way around the town pointing to various buildings and trying to sound like we knew what we were talking about, Yeah right…… Well we found it funny!!

I was really Impressed with Napier, I hadn’t had much expectations of the place because I had hardly heard of anybody talking about it, normally when travelling around a country you get to have a good idea of what a place is going to be like before you get there because you’ll have heard someone talk about it at some point, but I hadn’t heard anything about Napier and was pleasantly surprised to find this very quiet and very pretty little town that looked so different from any other place in NZ I had been to.

The following day we were all back on the bus, thankfully feeling a lot better than I did yesterday when we left Wellington and we set off back towards Taupo. I had contacted my friends, Rick and Min that I had stayed with back in October as I wanted to stay with them and help out on the farm once again as I had such a great laugh last time

As soon as I arrived it was straight back into the action of moving cattle and chasing sheep around on motorbikes etc, I had forgotten how much fun this was!! The other great treat about staying here was Min’s cooking, she is a superb cook and that night she had prepared a special roast dinner, now I know for everyone back home reading this a roast dinner isn’t anything special but I can tell you that when you’re travelling and constantly eating pasta and noodles, a roast dinner is a very serious event and can suddenly become the highlight of the whole week. My mouth was wet just at the thought of it let alone the smell while it was cooking!! And it didn’t disappoint it was gorgeous succulent pork from the farm and I believe probably the best meal I have had this year. I didn’t want it to end, I savored the flavour with every mouth full ha ha. I miss roast dinners so much!!

I was really looking forward to the next few days, no buses, really good home cooked food, helping out on the farm and of course being able to drive motorbikes all day. So the following day I jumped out of bed with great enthusiasm (well maybe that's bit of an exaggeration, I more or less rolled out of bed actually) ready so see what the day had in store for me and what excitement I was in for. Straight away I was following Rick around these incredibly steep hills trying to round up cattle on the bikes and push them through to another equally bumpy and hilly field.

I had been having a great time and really enjoying myself working alongside Rick as he is naturally funny and a great laugh (must be his Irish blood), this was until we entered a field which had this impossibly steep hill, Rick managed to find a route up but for some reason I found it incredibly hard to follow him and at one point the front wheel came up in the air due to the steepness of the slope and I managed to turn the bike around 180 degrees and landed the front wheel. Now I was facing the wrong way and with my back to the slope I decided to find another route up, I contemplated for while whether I should driving up it or not as it really was that steep!! I sat there on the bike for a while then thought ah bollox to it, found a route I thought I could get up, got a run up and let rip up the hillside but unfortunately about half way up the bike lost traction started to wheel spin and then very quickly after I jumped on the brakes it just skidded back down the hill picking up more and more speed, at which point it kinked and throw me off back down the hill, to which I landed really hard on my side and couldn’t breathe!!!!

The whole time I was going through the air in slow motion I though oh no this is going to hurt, I can’t afford to injure myself I got to see Laura in 2 weeks and I can’t be injured, I have got to be in perfect working order!!

For the follow weeks my ribs have given me real shit but having not gone to the doctor I’m not sure whether they were broken or just cracked but reading reports on the internet about how long they take to fix, I believe they may have been broken as 6 weeks on they are still a little tender!! I have since decided I am not going to make a profession out of being a stunt bike rider but I still love motorbikes, I’m just not going to try going up such steep slopes next time.

As you can probably guess for the next few days I was in serious pain and hardly able to move, laughing, coughing, sneezing etc bloody killed. I was just glad that I have done it at the end of my magic bus trip as supposed to at the start when I was walking up volcanoes, kayaking and bungee jumping etc as that could have caused real problems!

I think the worst bit about it was, once I had fallen of the bike, Rick was quite worried about me as I was having problems breathing as I had winded myself badly but as he needed to go load up a lorry I had told him I was ok and to go load the lorry and I would make my way back down to the house on the bike once I got my breath back. This proved to be a whole lot more tricky and painful than I thought. Every movement from my arms hurt so much as I tried to get the bike going again and the navigate my way back down the steep hill though into another field which was equally as hilly and bumpy, every jolt and bump shot through my torso like a bolt of electricity, it really was incredibly painful and the journey back to the house seemed to take for an eternity.
I couldn’t believe I was such an idiot to try such a stupid thing!! Well you live and learn - won’t be doing that again! I was still surprised at how much speed it picked up as it rolled back down the hill before chucking me off.

I ended up relaxing and resting here at Rick and Mins for a couple of days, which I felt really bad about as I had come here to help them on the farm and I had lasted 24 hours before injuring myself and was so unable to help with anything for the rest of my time.

Still in a lot of pain and feel like Mike Tyson had been training on my ribcage, I packed my bags and caught the bus a few day later to main beach holiday destination of the North Island known as Mount Maunganui for some R&R (rest and relaxation) and there would be no better place then here, where I am able to lying on a beach all day. Like many of the places I have been over the past few weeks, the weather was awesome the days before I had arrived had apparently been horrible but I was so luckily to find that the 3 days I had here were beautiful, with 2 of the days not having a cloud in the sky!!

I spent my time resting on the beach and soaking myself in the hot salt water pools just off from the beach, as I was told from Min, Salt water is really good for healing. To me sat in a hot water pool was nice enough but if it was doing me good as well then I’m well up for it!

It wasn’t all relaxing though as the first day I arrived I bumped into some friends of mine called Dan and Jen that I went kayaking with the Abel Tasmen. It was really good to see them again and catch up with what they had been doing etc, then Dan explained that they were about to climb to the top of Mt Maunganui and that I should join them. For some very stupid reason, for which I don’t know why I found myself saying yes!! What a bloody stupid idea, I was meant to be taking it easy and here I was agreeing to walk up a 250 meter high mound only 3 days after breaking my ribs!!

I did have to stop a fair few times as my breathing got heavier it started to really kill my chest but I persisted and finally got to the top and was greeted which a terrific view back along the coast and great views over the town etc. It really was worth it but I don’t think it was my best decision, should have really waited a few more days before attempting this as it really hurt like hell. I had only initially just gone for a small walk to get a bit of fresh air I had no intention of walking up any mountains!

I ended up having 3 very relaxing and peaceful days here, I just relaxing on the beach and read my book etc. On the last day my other English mate Dan (not the Dan with Jen) the one who I have been travelling with for the past couple of weeks came to Mt Maunganui, which was really cool to see him again and so for the rest of the day we hung at along with an American girl he met called Sally. He kept laughing at me about be falling of the bike and that I still couldn’t laugh properly which then made him all the more determined to make me laugh whenever he could!

I took them to the hot pools again, as I really liked it here. It’s funny as I had never really been to hot pools or spa’s before and now since being in NZ for the past 8 months I think I have been to so many of them I have lost count, they are great for just sitting around in and relaxing, one of the best way to while away an hour or two! Later that evening we all then headed off out for a few beers, now we English don’t realize how much we drink until we are in the company of other nations, cause as Dan and I were quietly drinking away having a laugh etc, Sally had somehow got completely pissed, which we hadn’t realize until we went to stand up and leave and she was all over the place and laughing her ass off.

We walked or in Sally’s case stumbled back to the hostel, were I thought she needed to sober up so I found some hot cross buns that I had and she was so taken back that there were actual things called ‘hot cross buns!!!’…. Americans!!!! She thought there were only in a song, didn’t actual realize you could get them, so as all 3 of us were at in the TV room with about 6-7 others, while Sally kept laughing and sing about hot cross buns and finding it highly amusing. I think everyone else in the room wondered what the hell she was on!

Having now finished my time here at Mount Maunganui I only had one more journey left which was back to Auckland and then in 2 days off to Thailand. I was sad that my Magic bus trip has come to an end, I think I have had the best 6 weeks I have had so far in NZ, I have met some really great people, made some awesome friends and experienced some great sights.

I still find it so hard to say bye to friends all the time, you meet people so quickly and are together for continual period of time get to know them pretty well then you’re on your way again and saying bye to them. I really hope that some of the people that i have met over the past 6 weeks I will be able to see again, as the reason why I enjoyed most of the things I did as much as I did was due to the people I was with at the time. The people really do make the experience!!

Well like I said with this part now finished and New Zealand having been done now for the second time, it’s now time to take my bags board my plane and head of to hotter climates, where more importantly I will be able to see my girlfriend that I haven’t seen for 8 months!!

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Photos

Looking out over Maunganui
Whata bitch of a hill to climb when you can't breath properly

At the Tui's brewery
Great sign - yeah right!

Art Deco appartently
What Napier is famous for but Dan and i didn't have clue what art deco was

Beautiful clear sea
Best way to relax from nakered ribs

Dan and Jen
It was there great idea for me to walk up the mount!!

Amazingly clear water
Reminds me of back in Australia