Top Of The South Rally Report

I've Been Thinking. I had been thinking about going to the rally but I was unsure about my bike s (1954 G3LS) reliability for such a long trip. When I read in the magazine that Chris de Wagt was heading up with a support vehicle I decided to give it a go.

Terminal. Chris had already arranged a group concession for the ferry so I met them all down at the terminal at the ungodly hour of 5 am. Graham Cole (Coley) was driving the back up vehicle with a trailer with Case navigating. Chris had her newly overhauled Enfield on the trailer along with Mindy Chowdhury s BSA. Steve Gaudin was on his newly restored Matchless G80 and so only the two of us rode onto the ferry and secured our bikes. I m glad I had my own tie downs because the ones on the ferry were greasy and filthy!

Snooze. Most of us had a snooze on the ferry and the crossing was quite pleasant. There was a bit of sorting out of bikes in Wellington before the four of us headed off on the motorway. The traffic wasn t too bad and we were travelling fairly sedately as Chris was running in the Enfield. I enjoyed the opportunity to have a blat on the motorway. My G3LS engine had been completely rebuilt 2 years ago by Murray McLean and it s never run so well.

Slow Driving. We stopped at Bulls for lunch and it was a welcome rest as we were all tired and a bit saddle sore. After a leisurely stop we headed off for our final stop at the old pub in Taihape. Somewhere on the way Chris distinguished herself by being pulled over for slow driving but managed to escape a ticket with some fast talking. After we had settled into the Pub somebody noticed a poster in the public bar advertising the Drifters , a trio of black Americans. We were joined at the pub by Niven Quintel who was on his BMW. His rally bike (1951 G3L AJS) was on the back up vehicle being driven by Daryl Stansbury who was supporting the Nelson contingent. After a few drinks in the bar we headed off for dinner and the plan was to spend the night in the bar and catch the Drifters performing. The pub filled up with some interesting people and the band was terrific but by late evening I decided to call it quits and hit the sack. About 10 minutes after I had gone upstairs Chris came running up to tell me that the Drifters had finally arrived on stage. I didn t stay long. It turns out that only one of them was a member of the original group! Nevertheless, they sang some of their old classics and Daryl got them to autograph his T shirt.

Magneto. During the night it rained quite heavily and it was still drizzling in the morning when we got ready to leave. I had brought only 1 pair of socks and I had washed them and left them to dry overnight. Of course they were sopping wet and my feet felt quite disgusting inside my boots. Alas, I only got about 5 Km up the road and my front mounted magneto decided to go the way of my wet socks and died. Daryl pulled up behind me and after a bit of reorganising we got the bike on the trailer and headed off again. I was never more grateful for a back up vehicle!

Daryl. Daryl was driving Malcolm McDonald s work truck which was making hard work of shifting a heavy trailer and a total load of 7 bikes. Daryl was down to second on most of the hills. By the time we got to Turangi the weather was clearing so we unloaded my bike again and Chris gave me some magic spray for my magneto. It worked and I got the bike going again and joined the others on the road. I got about 3Km up the road and it died again! I was standing there kicking away in frustration when Steve took great delight in pointing out that the fuel tap was off! Oh well, we have all done it. The bike performed beautifully after that and the only mechanical problem I had was just before Rotorua when a hose clip gave up and the fuel line fell off, hosing fuel all over my leg and the exhaust pipe. I jumped off and grabbed a fire extinguisher but fortunately nothing happened and we managed to repair it with tape which lasted until we got to Rotorua and I bought a new fitting.

A little trouble. We had a little trouble navigating through Rotorua but eventually found Lake Okataina where there was already an impressive line up of machines on the grass outside of the Outdoor Centre.

Rally. The actual rally was well organised and very enjoyable and as well as completing the ride around the Lake I managed to catch up with my cousin. There were some beautifully restored machines at the rally and I was particularly admiring Daryl s G9 and he kindly allowed me to ride it all the way back to Wellington.

Horrendous. On the way back I stayed with a friend near Hunterville and the others headed for Palmerston North. I caught up with them again near Levin and then it was on to the ferry. Reports of the weather had been horrendous while we were at the rally. Cars had broken loose in 10m swells and people had been injured so we were hoping that this wasn t going to be repeated. We needn't have worried as it was an unremarkable crossing.

Thanks to Chris and Coley for organising everything and I m already looking forward to next year's rally.

John Welch G3LS Picton