2018 in pictures

2018 was a crazily busy year, even by our standards and went in the blink of an eye.  The following photos represent various happenings in each month with a few comments and thoughts to go with them.

January
This is peak summer holiday season in NZ.  Living in a region which everyone  wants to visit in the vacations, we tend to hang around at home as the roads are busy with feral drivers who leave their brains wherever they come from.  The garden is a riot of colour at this time of year so that's what the photos are of.

 Bee on a dwarf bottlebrush plant, using the camera macro function

Tree loaded with colourful Luisa plums

February
The Institute of Advanced Motorists annual conference and get-together was held over a weekend at the scenic Taupo township.  For those who arrived on the Friday, there was the opportunity to take part in a trackday at the Bruce McLaren international circuit.  What a fantastic experience in great company.  Pulling 230 km/hr down the back straight then hard on the brakes, hoping I would make the tight left-hander at the end of the straight!

The first photo was taken just after dawn on the way to the circuit.  IAM Chief Motorcycle Examiner Philip on his Fireblade,  Lee on his MV Augusta 675 and my GSX-S 1000.  The second photo was taken by the track photographer of me flying round the left-hander at the end of the back straight.

The three musketeers at dawn en route to the track

Some old geezer trying to recapture his youth

March

A long weekend in NZ's capital to visit old friends also saw me mountain biking on the cycleway on the Kapiti Coast.  As part of the new motorway development, the government department responsible for building a new section of motorway also built adjacent wetlands to attract birds and other creatures plus the scenic cycleway.  Excellent work!

Trying to regain lost youth!

We also purchased a new boat for sea fishing.  Jennie's hip problem meant that the old boat was no longer comfortable.  Delighted to say that the new one does the business.

So-fish-ticated (named by our daughter)

An "arty" shot using the macro function of a plant in our garden after a rainstorm.  Showing off, it's called Dasylirion Wheeleri - a vicious but attractive spiky ball over a metre across which is good for drawing blood from the unwary, especially grandchildren!

Dasylirion Wheeleri from Mexico

The vicious plant in question

Word has also got around the local bird population that I'm a soft touch when it comes to giving them a feed.  If they see me working at the computer and I haven't put food out, they'll tap on the window if the ranchslider is closed or if it's open, they'll come inside and remonstrate with me!  In this case, it's some representatives from the local flock of Californian Quail.

C'mon human, pull finger and get out here pronto!

April

I was hugely proud to be appointed as an IAM Examiner.  Many Examiners are serving police officers with specialist riding and driving roles within the force and it was a genuine honour and humbling to be in their company and the massively competent civilian Examiners.  The photo below is the first rider I took for his Advanced Roadcraft Test and delighted to say that he passed the stringent theory and practical examination.

Chris and his GSX-S1000

We also took our grandchildren out fishing among the commercial mussel beds outside Coromandel Harbour and their parents also came out on their kayak.  Everyone caught fish and a great day was had by all.

Family fun

May

It's not only riders with sporty bikes who join IAM - everyone can benefit.  In the photo below, Trainee Observer (mentor) Tony is coaching cruiser rider Henry. I was mentoring Tony in observing skills and a couple of months later, he passed his Observer Test with flying colours.

Tony and Henry acting the goat

The Coromandel Peninsula is a haven for artisans of all sorts - potters, weavers, painters..... you name it and they're here.  We needed a new bookcase for a guest bedroom and commissioned a local furniture craftsman to make a rustic one for us in solid macrocarpa.  He's also made furniture for our deck and a large bookcase for our lounge and we have a great relationship.  We drop him off fish that we've caught and he gives us organic vegetables from his garden!

Picking up the bookcase from Greg - smells divine

June

Well into winter, although not that cold.  A great social run with fellow IAM members in the Central North Island.  Along twisty, largely empty back roads with freshly made wood-fired pizza for lunch.  Takes a lot of beating!  Also gathering near us for club runs were the local Ford Mustang and Mazda MX5 Miata car clubs.  Everyone mixed in waiting for their respective start times, creating a great atmosphere.

Assembling in the town of Te Aroha

July

Various plants flower all the year round in our garden and all though this succulent has been planted for a few years, it's the first time that it's flowered.  The conical flower spike is about 30 cm long and lasted for about 3 months.  Hope it does it again next year.

Flowering succulent, or maybe a Triffid!

It was also our 46th wedding anniversary, clearly demonstrating how tolerant Jennie is in putting up with me!  Didn't take any photos so it's appropriate to post one from our honeymoon in Croatia and Venice in 1972.

Sigh..... when we were young....

August

Regular readers will remember the 17th August blog post of collecting a Porsche Carerra 4S Turbo and delivering it to Auckland.  That is.... remembering that I made a complete fool of myself adjusting the seat, trying to start it, looking for the parking brake and a whole load of other embarrassing incidents.  Apart from the humiliation, it was a surprisingly underwhelming experience.  The electronics package meant that it didn't require much driver input at sane highway speeds combined with poor rearward visibility.  Over $200,000 in NZ plus an equally frightening operating cost.   Has totally put me off supercars  - give me a 70's muscle car every time, or even something like a Lotus 7.

Not exactly an understated colour scheme

September

Two more central north island Trainee Observers passed their Full Observer theory and practical tests in the past few weeks.  Chris, the middle of the three below had just passed.  Neil on the left ran the test.  Pete, on the right, is the new IAM member who Chris was putting through his paces as part of the test.  Now here's a surprise..... Pete is actually in charge of the Highway Patrol road policing team for our province!  Mainly driving cars in his day job but also a keen motorcyclist, he saw joining IAM as a means of regularly maintaining his skills to a high level.  Great guy and a real pleasure to have in our region.

Neil, Chris and Pete

One evening, Jennie and I were heading into our village to take part in a charity fundraising quiz bang on sunset.  I took the following photo by sheer good fortune on my mobile phone a few hundred metres from home which is on the ridge at the rear of the image.  Often, the best photos come about by blind chance!

Sunset over Coromandel Harbour

October

A busy month.  Turned 71, fitted a new Nitron custom shock to the bike (Jennie's birthday present to me!) and had a brisk social ride with some of the fellow IAM Observers from our region.  The first photo was taken in a town called Paeroa.  The Lemon and Paeroa (L&P) bottle signifies NZ's nearest equivalent to Coke.  Originally made in Paeroa in 1907 from local carbonated spring water and lemons.  Now made in Auckland and almost certainly bears no relationship to the original product!

From left: Lloyd, Rob, Neil and me

October also saw the second of 3 punctures in 4 months, one of which necessitated the replacement of my Michelin Road 5 rear tyre.  All of them happened in out of the way places and I'm glad that I always carry an electric pump and 3 different options for repairing a puncture.  Overkill?  Not when you live out in the boondocks!  The next picture shows me fixing a puncture with "dog turds" during a training ride.  Hopefully, the run of bad luck has finished.

The smile is more relief than amusement!

November
Long-term readers might remember that an adorable, tiny stray kitten just a few weeks old turned up at our place in 2011 and never left.  We called her Annie (as in Little Orphan Annie).  A few weeks after she turned up, my old cat passed on and since then, Annie made it her business to supervise everything I do.  She's rarely far from my side when I'm at home.  Here she is making sure that my computer work is up to scratch and it looks like I've been found wanting by her expression! 

Must try harder, human!

December

Jennie's birthday and took her completely by surprise with a wooden skeleton clock which I'd commissioned a friend to make for her.  All sorts of tricks were pulled and white lies told to throw her off the scent.  The details are mentioned in a recent post but to say that she loves it is an understatement.  Had to laugh when she told me that she'd been monitoring our joint account to see what I'd spent in the run-up to her birthday.  Thought she might so had a crafty way to get round that!

One happy lady....

Whilst in Auckland helping to run a motorcycle course, I stayed with our daughter Victoria and son in law Luke.  Luke is a landscape architect and his design for public seating was chosen as part of the Auckland waterfront upgrade in time for the America's Cup defence in 2021.   The first one has just been installed.  Consisting of computer-cut slats with internal lighting for nighttime, it looks spectacular.  Very proud of what Luke is achieving so early in his career.

Cool public seating at the Viaduct Basin, Auckland

December sees millions of pohutukawa trees in full bloom in NZ.  The photo below was taken from our son's house on Christmas Eve.  The crimson blooms have formed a carpet of red "needles" in the road.  A whole lot better than snow!

Colour me red.....

Looking forward to what 2019 might hold.  The "knowns" are a hip replacement for Jennie which will see her out of pain at last, a visit from old friends from the UK, a trip to China and replacing my Suzuki (Official Permission, no less!) .  I'm sure that there will be many more surprises along the way!

Here's wishing all fellow bloggers and readers a fabulous and safe 2019!

An idiot and a Porsche

Our daughter-in-law's mother sadly passed away recently.  As part of the estate settlement, I have just been asked to collect her car not far from where we live and drive it on the weekend to Auckland for eventual sale.

I'd better come clean at this stage and admit that this vehicle is no shopping basket - it's a Porsche Carrera Cabriolet 4S.  Three litre, twin turbo pumping out well over 400 horses with active suspension and all-wheel drive to put all that power onto the road.  Dead keen to have a decent drive of a genuine supercar with less than 5000 km on the clock!

Jennie drove me to the place where it was stored to pick up the keys.  This is where trying to be Mr. Cool was about to descend into pure farce.  No-one there to tell me the basics but what could possibly go wrong?  My Toyota 4x4 has a key.  You know, one of those things with a plastic bit you grip, with a jagged bit of metal out front which you stick into a slot, turn and the engine goes brmmmmm.  Jennie's Honda is keyless and all you have to do is keep the thing that looks like a garage door opener somewhere on your person and press the button on the dash marked "Start".  It then goes brmmmmmm.

This is one of the few times where education or accumulated life experience counted for bugger-all or pretty close to it. Not a good feeling!

This is what I got given:

Yep,   recognise those symbols (I think)!

Even a plonker like me can recognise the unlock symbol so that's what I pressed. Pulling the door open, I was greeted by the driver's seat automatically sliding into some predetermined position which was a "wee bit" different from my anatomical requirements.  The first intelligence test was to adjust the seat and I was found wanting.  After finding the controls, of which there were multiple unmarked options, I stuffed about with limited success.  Aware that as well as Jennie, others might be surreptitiously watching my lack of progress, so about 75% right was good enough after what felt like hours but was probably only a couple of minutes.

The next humiliation was trying to start it.  Clearly, the device was some sort of keyless sensor like Jennie's but where the hell was the start button?  The Porsche has instrumentation to rival the Concorde flight deck and scanning the dashboard gave absolutely no clue.  Visions of having to ring a Porsche dealer... "Hello, I'm not the owner but can you tell me how to start this expensive car I'm trying to drive off in?"  Shortly followed by red and blues with batons and pepper spray.  By this time, Jennie was anxious to abandon me and disappear home in her car.  Desperation was setting in and then I noticed an indentation in the dash, roughly where a normal ignition barrel is.  An experimental poke with my finger and a cover slid aside.  Bingo, the "key thingy" is clearly meant to fit in it.  Just like you see in the movies where the human discovers an alien starship and can't resist sticking things in holes and you know it's probably not going to end well.  I felt much the same.

Just a small fraction of the instrumentation

Give it a turn and the instruments light up but no engine - bloody hell - what now?  Then I notice some words on one of the instruments that says "put your foot on the brake" or words to that effect.  Followed the instruction and Hallelujah - engine rumbles into life! Humiliation is not quite complete however - where the hell is the handbrake?  Not a lever to be seen but after a minute or so, I notice a small switch near my right knee which has a red LED glowing away.  Aha!  an electro-mechanical parking brake.  Snick it into reverse and we gently move backwards, ready to make the 40 minute journey home.

I prefer an understated colour scheme, not wanting to draw attention to myself and this one is the polar opposite with contrasting red mags, black bodywork and a red convertible top.  Sticks out a mile in rural Coromandel and could attract unwanted attention.

It seems an eternity since first opening the car door but it's probably closer to 15 minutes.  Pulling out onto the public roads, I'm aware just how wide this beast is at the rear wheels as the flared wheel arches fill half the wing mirrors.  The driver's internal mirror isn't brilliant either as the rear window is so acutely angled that it's like looking through a 20cm wide slot.  On the Suzuki, I'm doing mirror checks every few seconds, backed up with lifesavers (shoulder checks) where appropriate.  The comparative lack of rear vision on the Porsche is really unsettling.  

Several of the instrument clusters seem to have a dual purpose.  One reminds you about seatbelts and other things when stationary but shows turbo boost and various other pressures and temperatures when rolling.  Far better to just look where you're going than getting distracted.

330 km/hr speedo and multi-function gauge for boost and temperatures

Looking a tad anxious perhaps?

Driving like a nana through town to get a feel for it, I'm acutely conscious that I'm driving a car that cost well over NZ$200,000 and don't want to ding it or worse.  Clearing town, I pull over by the sea to reset my mental calibration.  I find this works if I'm not riding the bike particularly well.  Here's the Porsche Carrera.

Not to my taste but looks the part

Very little traffic on the road so a bit more throttle is used through the twisties.  The all-wheel drive coupled with active suspension makes it eat the corners but can't help thinking that it removes driver "feel".  It actually feels quite sterile and uninvolving which is a complete surprise.  Price of progress I guess in making things safer for drivers who aren't particularly skilled.  Earlier models of Porsche had a reputation for biting the heavy-handed.  I leave the gearbox in auto mode rather than manual and use the paddles for cornering and the odd overtake.  Crikey, this mother picks up her skirts and flies when those twin turbos start to spool up! In no time, we're back in our village, hoping no-one will recognise me in a place where mud-splattered 4x4's and utes are the most common form of transport.  

Parking it in a space under our front decking, all sorts of anti-collision sensors are chiming away and flashing various colours on the camera LCD display, warning of impending doom.  Personally, I find it a distraction and prefer to use my eyes, questionable visibility notwithstanding.  

Does my bum look big?  Big flares to cover the outrageous 305x30 rubber at NZ$1270 per tyre

Just one more humiliation awaits me before calling it quits for the evening.  Being uncertain about fuel consumption, I'd better find out how to fill the thing up if need be on the trip to Auckland in a few days.  Hunt as I may, simply can't find the filler cap release.  Just about to give up and go on the internet for info when I give the cap a little push and it pops open!  The car has to be unlocked before it will activate.  Duhhhh......

We now have to face the weekend delivery drive to Auckland.  A couple of my mates are Highway Patrol officers up that way and I pray that they don't recognise me.  You know what mates are like....

So there we are.....  an interesting day or two, a few laughs at my expense, enjoyed the experience of driving the beast but didn't enjoy the attention it garners.   Last thing you'd want is to get it coined or worse. Would I want one?  Not on your life.  Apart from the frightening cost of owning one, everyone on the road would hate me, thinking "Old geezer trying to re-live his youth, 25 year old mistress tucked away somewhere".  Now if I had a 70's American muscle car like a Boss Mustang or a Charger, the vibes would be entirely different.  Wouldn't even care if they thought that I had a 25 year old mistress!  Ditto for an E-type or Austin Healy 3000.  If pressed for a modern supercar with a bit of class, it would have to be an Aston Martin or a GT40 replica.  I'll stick to bikes for performance thanks!

Addendum:  Well, the Porsche was safely delivered to Auckland.  Nothing remarkable about the drive as it's not a car that gets the driver involved, at least at sane highway speeds.  However, there was one more surprise waiting.  I exited the motorway off-ramp close to our son and daughter-in-law's place and cruised down to the traffic lights at the end of the ramp.  After sitting there for a few moments, the engine stopped dead with a moment's panic on my behalf.  Check the fuel gauge - fine.  Quick scan of the instrumentation - fine.  Oh Lord - what now?  Move foot partially off the brake and it re-starts with no input from me.  Aha - so it's one of those auto-stop engines which saves on fuel!  If it had been a genuine malfunction, I'd bet good money that most motorists would enjoy the spectacle of a Porsche being pushed out of the way rather than coming to the aid of the driver!  Amazing how quickly the panic levels rise when something happens that you're not expecting.  An interesting experience to report on but in no hurry to repeat it.  Anyone want a GT 40 or a Boss Mustang delivering?

The Suzuki at the back - similar performance for under NZ$20,000