Labour Weekend

Last weekend was New Zealand's Labour Weekend, and this was me during part of it:


Some motorcycling friends of mine came down from the North Island to a party weekend in Timaru, a couple of hours drive north of where I live, so I drove up after work on the Friday to meet them. On the Saturday we went for a ride to the Levels (Timaru's motor racing track) where the South Canterbury Post Vintage Motorcycle club was having a race day and bike show to mark its centenary. I'm imagining it can't really have started off 100 years ago as a "post vintage" bike club, there not being a great deal in the way of vintage motorcycles around at the time, but that's what it has become over the years.

This little Rickman Metisse is what people used to ride while scrambling back in the 1950s; a friend of mine owns one, although in nowhere near as good nick as this:


This one has a Triumph motor in it I'm pretty sure; there were about three others on show, one of which had a Norton motor, the others were Triumphs.

This 1974 Triumph Trident was absolutely mint:


These speedway bikes were raced back in the day by Ivan Mauger, who was attending the centenary:


I was rather taken by the wicker sidechair on this one:


I can just see myself in a big flowery hat sitting in it being driven around at ~30kph.

But this one was my favourite:


No-one knew exactly what motor it had in it but it was a Triumph single cylinder, around 350cc. Lovely wee thing it was too.

This is us parked at the track (well, not me, I'm behind the camera) totally surrounding that cute wee mini; I wouldn't have minded it either. They stick to the road like glue.


It was a gorgeous day for a ride, and after we left the Levels we rode out to the pub at a rather picturesque little place called Cave …


… where we had a couple of drinks outside in the sun before riding back to Timaru to party all night. Not very successfully on my part - I crashed at about 5am. Getting old.

Next day we lazed around in front of the television, then my best friend of "the boys" and I went out and got sandwiches from Subway for dinner and ate them at Caroline Bay:


I hadn't been there since a family holiday about 45 years ago, although I've driven past it a number of times.

It's really rather lovely; this is the edge of the bay …


… and around a wee bit further is the port of Timaru and this memorial to fishermen who have lost their lives at sea.


On a more cheerful note, look at these eggs I was in the process of overcooking:


I couldn't believe it; out of three eggs, two were double yolkers. The next day was the same! One pack of six had four double yolked eggs. Some sort of mutant chooks, we decided.