On Sunday, Junior and I set out for a very wet ride through the Waitaks. Apart from the spectacle I am about to mention, the murky conditions, the pain of Mountain Road and the general sense of smugness that comes from riding in foul weather, there was little of note. The spectacle we saw was an ostentation of peafowl. We had to slow and dodge a bevy that wandered across our path.
Later, much later, I was musing to myself about the other strange things I have witnessed from the saddle of my bike.
The north-western bike path is always good through the summer months to see tired individuals engaging in the walk of shame. Their legs jelly-like and their stride not so confident, best out on the town clothes and shoes really not up to the task of a 15 to 20 kilometre stroll home. One morning this year, a glorious morning, warm and just on sunrise we passed a chap propped up against the lamp post by the Patiki Road raceway. He was facing east, fast asleep and shortly he was due to get the full glare of a summer sun. I'd wager that his mouth would have felt like someone had poured silica gel in it by the time he woke. At least he would have woken with a view.
There is, etched indelibly in my memory, a facial expression from The Worm that I'd rather forget. Junior also had the misfortune to bear witness to this face. It appeared as The Worm tussled with getting a tyre back on a rim after a tube change. I don't want to describe it too vividly, but I will say that it looked like a mix between an eager school boy, a rutting dog and Rob Muldoon. Thankfully once he started pumping the tyre up it went away.
I've seen a huge variety of animals as part of my two wheeled rubber time, both domestic and wild. Have seen some rare native fauna, some introduced fauna that left me enraged and wanting a firearm ( Mustelidae family take a bow), have had a few near misses and frights with both large and small quadrapeds, but the single strangest sight came in the depths of a winter dawn.
Several years ago Warren King and I were riding in the Dairy Flat and Coatsville area, we had left in the pre-dawn dark and had just ridden past the dawn. We dropped down into the back of Coatsville through Sunnyside Road, which at that time of day is anything but sunny. Down the bottom is a narrow little glen with two one way bridges in quick succession. It's a rural area. Between the bridges we passed a couple out walking, each of them carrying on their arm a large Sulfur Crested Cockatoo. Suffice to say both of us were speechless. No one believed our story. As luck would have it about a year later, quite a bit later in the morning a group of us were out riding in the area and passed the same couple with their cockatoos. That served to dispel a few rumours as to Warren's sanity.
Unfortunately, while I have seen plenty of wildlife and a banjo playing chap at Matawai I am yet to see any female public nudity as part of my riding. If I post my riding plans, is there anyone who would care to assist?
Yours in anticipation.
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