"The Many (Mis) Adventures of DR N": A Snap Shot from "Down Under"

LONG time friend and riding buddy Ron Moropito, got the dream of a lifetime opportunity this year. With the help of his extremely generous sweetheart of a daughter, Unca Ronnie as I like to call him, set out to prove the world was indeed round. This past summer, he packed his helmet, riding gear and penchant to explore and headed south. Waaaay South.

Since I have never been myself, it's hard to imagine how far away this is from his hometown of Kamloops. The banana belt as he likes to refer... I wondered if there are banana's growing down under, apparently not, but what is growing is mountains, fiords and weather 180 degrees from ours.

Summer there, is winter in Canada.

Ronnie and I are old fashioned dudes, we like to explore, ride our motorcycles, appreciate a good joke and pretty ladies and are so dang polite, you'd think we were dealing with royalty!

Anyway... here's some pics and background on what his upside down trip was like... enjoy!

New Zealand Epic - Episode ONE

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Back in December, for my 75 th birthday my daughter arranged a nice birthday dinner with all my favour foods. After dinner she presented me with a Child's small sand bucket for the beach. At the bottom of the bucket were a number of Scrabble letters. I was told to arrange the letters. What they eventually spelled out was NEW ZEALAND. She then told me to contact a travel agent as I was going to NZ. Damn near had heart failure (was that her sinister plan all along? HMMM?).

One of the last things on my bucket list was to visit NZ to do some exploring, hopefully by motorcycle. Other bucket list items had been accomplished which included visits to England twice, in 1997 and again in 2014. Both times I rented motorcycles. I also managed a trip back to PEI to visit Frank, in 2013. But that's another story.

I never thought I would actually make it to NZ unless I won the lottery. In a way I guess I did win the lottery when my daughter was born.

It took several months to make all the arrangements, but I left Kamloops on Thursday March 21, flew to Vancouver, then after a lengthy lay-over, flew AIR New Zealand direct to Auckland. A bit of advice, NEVER travel in a window seat on a14 hour non-stop flight. First of all, what the hell can you see at 600 miles per hour at 35, 000 feet, in the middle of the night. AND never take a window seat when you've had a kidney stone attack less than a year before. Climbing over people when you need to hit the LOO (in a hurry) is not fun, especially when they are trying to sleep. I arranged for an isle seat for the return journey.

Friends I had known when they lived in Vancouver back in the late 90's early 2000's arranged to pick me up from the airport early Saturday morning when I landed. Since the day was still young, and jet lag hadn't set in, I got a quick tour of their lovely home in a somewhat rural area about 70 km south west of Auckland.