Although you've been away a while you certainly make up for it with
harrowing tales when you return.
Chuck Norcutt
On 7/7/2011 12:59 PM, Brian Swale wrote:
> I've been away a couple of days, then yesterday was spent mainly
> recovering.
>
> 1,000 km round trip, towing a long vehicle recovery trailer behind the Range
> Rover, from Clyde to Christchurch and back, over my "normal" "alpine" route
> which includes some difficult ascents even if they are not terribly long as
> ascents go.
>
> I had a 1967 Peugeot 404 KF2 (fuel-injected) sedan in Christchurch which I
> had tried to sell on-line, but I didn't get the price I think this rare beast
> deserves. So I made the (probably stupid) decision to bring it down here,
> where I will be able to clean it up, and not be under huge time pressure to
> sell, and no longer be in the previous smaller market I was confined to, now
> that the time now available will increase.
>
> I hired a self-loading vehicle recovery trailer. Behind the RR, it was a long
> rig. It proved to be very well designed and made. Towed like a dream, and
> easy to reverse. It's amazing how much respect other traffic gives a long
> bare-metal trailer in heavy urban Christchurch rush-hour traffic. (I decided
> to
> cross the city to visit my brother) Just indicate lane-change in good time and
> all potential challengers for the intended space just back off :-) Took me a
> little time to adapt to the necessary wide turning circle; I "nearly" wiped
> off
> the map a couple of times in a tight manoeuvre the end bowsers when lining
> up to refuel :-) !
>
> And the RR performed very well and I learned a bit more about heavy load
> handing and hills.
>
> The brightest part of the trip was picking up a hitch-hiker (with a huge back-
> pack) at a place called Tekapo, who was headed to Timaru, about 2 hours
> more or less along my path. A young French woman who has been out of
> France for more than 2 years; 2 years in Australia, some in SE Asia, and 7
> months in NZ including a lot of time where I now live. Very pleasant
> company, and we found shared preferences in music and other cultural
> interests. I even managed to recall some of my long-ago learned French
> language.
>
> Considering it is supposed to be the middle of winter here, my (informed)
> choice of days was ideal; no ice worth mentioning on the roads and no
> snow. The weather forecasting people did a great job. The proverbial
> "window of opportunity".
>
> In many ways it was sad to visit my brother, but at least he is still alive.
> On
> the day (22 Feb) of a massive earthquake shock ( I had been in Chch the
> day before at a funeral) he had been assessing his old, large, 2-storey,
> double-brick 1870's mansion with an Insurance Assessor. This person
> wanted to go inside, and my brother forbad it. 5 minutes later, while they
> were outside the building, and fortunately not under any of the brick-work
> arches, the 6.7 magnitude shallow quake struck. Large brick chimneys fell
> right through the structure where they might have been, and also the arches
> crumbled before their eyes. The outside walls assumed crazy angles but
> fortunately did not fall on any of the parked vehicles. Mainly to forestall
> problems with the Historic Places Trust, he had all the wreckage off-site and
> in a private dump within 48 hours ! He could salvage nothing ( most stuff of
> value was long before removed to storage).
>
> So it felt weird to be able to park my long rig on flat compacted gravel where
> once a magnificent building stood.
>
> Brian Swale.
> http://www.brianswale.com
>
--
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