Perth Adventure Riders - The Land Of The One-lane Bridges

Colin Bayman and his group continue their annual exploration of exotic destinations. For 2018 it was New Zealand’s south island.

- Colin Bayman

Within just five hours and 10 minutes the Perth Adventure Riders had arrived in Christchurch on a direct Air NZ flight. It was 9.30am and the shuttle bus took the crew straight to the bike-hire company to finish off paperwork, pack panniers and boot up. There were nine bikes lined up, including a couple of GS650s, a lonely DR650 and the remainder were V-Strom 650s.  

The destination for the first day was only 35km away, but a nice, 180km loop through scenic Akaroa was planned before arriving at the Famous Grouse Hotel in Lincoln for the night’s lodging, dinner and a few bevvies.

A cut above

Moments before leaving the bike-hire business Peter mounted his V-Strom and found himself crashing to the ground. We all looked on in disbelief, thinking, ‘What has the boy just done?’

A 75mm weld holding the sidestand to the frame had given way, causing the bike to fall and the windscreen to enter the bottom of his helmet, drive up through his mouth and rip open his top gum.

We could tell from the amount of blood he’d need a trip to the hospital for a few stiches, and although we all pretended to appear concerned and asked how he was, we just wanted to hit the road.

The rest of us went off for some lunch while Pete went for medical attention and eventually we started riding a little later than planned.

Picture perfect

Our planned tour was to take us through Twizel, Dunedin, Invercargill, Queenstown, the Franz Josef glacier, Reefton and back to Christchurch. All up it was nearly 3000km. Each member of the group was responsible for one day and had to plan the route, include coffee and lunch breaks, fuel stops, accommodation and dinner, as well as lead for that section.