... and direct drive ski boats...

I was pottering around in the workshop I have under my house the other day when I spied an old, much loved but nonetheless very much abused Holden V8 engine. I had taken it from a vehicle I once owned and it's still perched upon an engine stand and it looks ever so forlorn. It's manifold is carburettor-less and both heads are unbolted and askew, but it reminded me of a most amusing tale that I had long ago forgotten.

I used to work, at one of many stages, with an old guy called Tony. By older I mean I was probably only 20 - 21 and he would have been knocking on the door of 65 I suppose...

Now Tony, despite his age was one of the more active and interesting people I had ever had the pleasure of working with. He was still a certified diver, a qualification I had only just achieved, he actively enjoyed water skiing and he was as skilled an engineer as I had ever come across.

There was nothing Tony could not build or design. He had his own workshop and by that I mean he had several milling machines, several lathes(including a vertical lathe) two very large band saws, a reciprocating hacksaw that frightened me and more wielders (gas, MIG, TIG and arc) than you could shake a stick at!

If you couldn't find, buy or steal it - Tony could make it for you!

One Monday morning Tony arrived for work looking rather smug and I couldn't help but notice. So as we sat chatting over a morning cup of coffee, discussing the weekends highlights he looked at me rather beady eyed and said, "I've got myself a new ski boat".

"Ahhhh" says I. "I wondered what the smug look was all about".

"Yes" he says. "350cu small block Chev in a 14 foot fibreglass Haines".

"Dang!" was the best I had to offer.

"Yup" He says. "Only one problem, she's got no gearbox".

I for one didn't really see any problem with this as there would be plenty of old 2 stage powerglides floating around the place that I was sure would mate up nicely to the Chev bell housing, especially when you considered that Tony was on the job...

So nothing happened for quite some time until one day Tony meandered into my workshop at work, deep in thought and obviously carefully mulling something over.

He finally broke free from his reverie and looked up at me with a ponderous look...

"... whataya ya reckon the boat would go like as a direct drive?" he asked.

To be honest I had never (and still haven't) owned a boat, which he knew, so I was surprised that he had even bothered to ask me.

I had however owned several radio controlled model boats with small nitro powered glow engines and they had been direct drive types.

The first thing that came to my mind was the fact that in a full sized version you would have to crank the engine while the boat was in the water and this would mean that the prop would start to make thrust while cranking and the boat would begin moving forward right from that moment. But as Tony rightfully pointed out, you simply wouldn't crank it into life unless there was nobody in front of you. Simple.

O.k second challenge. Being that the prop would be under constant load at all times including idle, she was going to need the mother of all flywheels. Again, this is "TONY" we're talking about here, so no problem really, just mate something off an old truck motor to the output flange on the ole Chev and Bobs your uncle.

O.k third challenge. No reverse. Hmmmm. This one was solved by my youth and enthusiasm.

"Tony" I said, "who the fuck needs reverse when you've got that much horse power for going forward!"

"Just come in toward your trailer slightly up current and drift down current until your in line with the trailer and give it some herb" I reasoned, altogether enthusiastically (I had never owned a boat but I'd been on more than enough to have seen that technique put into play).

Tony, having owned more than his fair share had also successfully employed the same technique.

And so it was that Tony became the proud owner of a not so new boat with a very near to new and reasonably well worked over motor that could pull a small housing estate through a sea of near dry cement!

As a ski boat it was outstanding, especially when you got more than two people behind it - as this took a bit of the, 'snap' out of it.

I liked it, although it was a bit of a handful on take off and getting it back on the trailer under certain conditions was fraught with peril.

More than once we managed to miss time the exact moment or the motor miss fired when aligning with the trailer and this saw the hull punctured as the beast powered up the trailer over the side and crunched into the trailers tail light brackets. But otherwise... that boat was grunty and the traction was nothing short of spine snapping...

But all good things must come to an end and eventually I guess the novelty wore off and Tony decided that the boat was getting a little bit worse for wear and tear. So he put it up for sale.

To be honest I wasn't entirely surprised by the lack of response.. prop driven, direct drive power boats were not exactly the flavor of the month 20 years ago and it's a brave man that takes one on, even today.

Eventually though he got a good strong bite and one Friday afternoon he asked me if I would be able to give him a hand on Saturday morning to put the boat in the water as he had a... 'would be' buyer.

So we arranged to meet up at a little bay with a launching ramp not far from Hillsborough bay on the Manukau harbour in time for the mornings full tide.

When I arrived Tony and the would be buyer were already there.

The 'mark', for want of a better word, was looking over the boat enthusiastically. He was a young Maori guy and from his car I could tell he was a V8 enthusiast. This became more and more obvious as he simply glazed over the minor defects in the boats hull and the obvious signs of vibration wear and became more and more focused on the gleaming Chevy.

So we got the boat in the water and once we were all seated Tony hit the starter.

At this point I must explain the seating arrangement.

Now Tony may have been a great engineer but he was also British and despite having lived in New Zealand for the past 14 years he had lost none of his frugal mentality. So what he had come up with was a bracket that was bolted and molded/glassed into the floor of the boat. To this he had fitted the bench seat from the front of an HQ Holden utility. His reasoning was pretty sound really. There were thousands of these seats around and when one wore out or the springs got rusty and collapsed he would throw it away and bolt in another which he cheaply obtained from the local automotive wreckers. Brilliant in many ways. They were really very comfortable, they were large and three could sit comfortably on it, they were cheap and they were easily obtainable.

However seeing as how the boat was up for sale the particular seat we found ourselves sitting upon that particular morning was really past it's use by date, but why buy a new one when your about to sell it, right...?

Why indeed...?

Anyway... The three of us are perched happily on this bench seat when Tony keys the starter.

The sound of the engine is beautiful. Extractors to a resonator to a four inch tail pipe about two feet long on each side, deafening is one way of putting it but when it's that beautiful purr it's easy to look past the pain and the blood in your ears...

Tony and I both glanced at the 'mark' and we could tell from the dreamy expression on his face that if the motor performed as per it's usual standard and didn't misfire or run rough we had a taker on our hands. We were already making good wake at idle and the young fella was obviously bursting to see what this thing could do.

So with a knowing nod at me and a devilish smirk Tony slammed the throttle wide open.

With a bellow like a wounded bull the prop bit and the engine note went straight to 4000RPM.

The g force was spectacular!

For an instant...

In the next it was gone!

The back of our seat collapsed and folded backwards!

Only Tony who was gripping the steering wheel remained on the wretched seat but he didn't have the strength to maintain his grip on the wheel and take one hand off to back off the throttle. In the blink of an eye, the 'mark' and I were a tangled, battered, cut and bruised mass, forced cruelly back and pinned to the transom by the amazing g forces that only two hundred horsepower of screaming V8 can apply.

The nose of the boat was still pointing at the sky as we had still nowhere near reached planing speed as yet and the prop was still cavitating. But it was catching up fast and the faster we went the more perilous became our predicament, because now as the nose began to level out our speed was starting to allow the boat to skim and our driver was less steering and more simply hanging on for dear life, staring awestruck and terrified at the sky!!!

Without a steady hand on the wheel or if Tony's strength failed we could quite understandably cut viciously to the left or right which would see us quickly and spectacularly removed from our relatively safe position, glued to the transom.

Myself and the 'mark' had been somewhat shredded by the cowl that ran half the length of the boat and covered the drive shaft. So between fighting the g forces still being applied and slipping on the blood soaked floor our efforts to move toward the accursed throttle were rather thwarted and we tore on madly, completely out of control.

I eventually made it forward inch by inch until I came up behind Tony locked my feet in the gap between the uselessly folded down seat back and the seat itself, wrapped my arms around Tony and also grabbed the wheel. This left him free to take one hand off the wheel and slam the throttle closed!

The resultant lack of forward thrust and the grip of the water on the hull threw the bewildered 'mark' from a cowering position aft, ass over kite to the front of the boat where he landed face down over the seat where our feet would normally have been.

He stayed there for quite awhile... we let him.

Tony killed the ignition.

When he finally hauled himself up and sat himself down Tony began apologizing profusely but our man simply raised one hand and shook his head.

The trip back to shore was a quiet and very low RPM one.

Tony and I decided that it would be wiser perhaps to simply bring the boat in close enough to allow our passenger to disembark rather than risk a dodgy trailer mounting and kill our young friend with a second terror stunt.

Him and I jumped out into the waist deep water and waded to shore, he staggered off towards his car (I suspected it was to check his undies) and I backed Tonys car and the trailer down to the water and dipped the trailer in. To Tony's credit he managed to dock the boat on the trailer without a hint of incident but I could tell from the rueful look on his face that he knew this particular sale was lost.

In honesty I was surprised the young fella hadn't got in his car and vanished in a cloud of dust, smoke and small bouncing stones...

In fact as Tony and I stood beside the trailer fastening the last tie downs, he reappeared.

Tony and I again began pouring forth a rapid string of apologies and the young bloke once again raised his hand in a 'stop' gesture.

With a maniacal glint in in his eye, he looked steadily at the both of us and said,

"Fuck yeah man, I'll take it!!!"

Maori's!

Ya just never really know whats gunna happen...

(In memory of Tony Callum. Merchant Navy man and all around bloody good bloke)

Currently listening to:

Annabel Fay - Annabel Fay

Fresh

Every now and again I like to get up quite early on a Saturday and head down to the local mall, just a little before it opens.

I like to swing by the Henderson Courthouse.

There's an old homeless guy who sleeps in the Courtroom entrance outside the main doors.

I buy him a pie and a pack of cigarettes.

Over the years we've become somewhat familiar.

I've never quite managed to get his story from him but I'm sure it would be interesting, if I could...

He's a rather grizzled old fellow, not what I would consider tough but certainly hardy and he doesn't smell all that bad really.

He can wolf down a pie faster than anyone I know but it's the cigarettes that have won him over...

I don't usually stay with him long.

I can tell it makes him nervous and uncomfortable but I usually stay to talk with him long enough to ask him a couple of questions about the most topical issues on the news at the time.

At first I started doing it for my own amusement but also I was hoping to see how sane the guy was, mostly because every time I had stopped to chat, offer a cigarette and asked his name he had proffered different ones... I still don't know his real name.

He's usually very gruff and at times can be extraordinarily racist, especially toward Maori people, I guess a lot of the kids that give him a hard time during those cold nights are local Maori kids.

But being that I'm Maori and I most of all know what that entails, what he has to say could never offend me - lets face it there are times when my lot can be pretty bloody useless and even I can feel quilt by association!

But nearly every time what he has to say has me in stitches. I've learnt not to laugh out loud at him now, it seems loud outbursts of sound make him nervous... But some of his responses are absolute gems and I'm certain that under the booze addled exterior there lies a very astute and wonderful mind.

Anyway last Saturday I got the 'go to the mall early thing' (which is what this blog is about really..) and I thought 'go get a pie and some smokes and go pay Dave, Pete, Steve, Gav, Rick a visit'.

So after he'd breathed down his pie, struck up his first cigarette and carefully hidden the pack in his voluminous coat, I asked him what he thought about the state of the Commonwealth Games debarcle in Delhi.

"Arrrrrr well son" he rasped at me (he always calls me son even though I'd only put him at 5 or 6 years older than me)

"Every living thing has an arsehole". "And planet earth... planet earths arsehole is India!"

"Even bloody England didn't want it son!"

Well bowl me over with a feather!!!

Never underestimate that old homeless guy you walk past on the street. He may have a lot more going on in there than you have given him credit for.

****

Anyway what I was meant to be getting to was that I really like being the first or one of the first people into a mall in the morning.

I like the way it's all new, fresh and shiny.

My local Mall always smells like fresh coffee and Jaffle pies and it's always warm...

To me, getting to the mall at this time is much like when somebody rips the cellophane of a new box of assorted chocolates and offers me the first one. I already know everything that is in there but it still feels special to be the first one to look in there and make a choice.

I like to sit in the food hall, sip my hot chocolate and watch the people that come there to eat breakfast at that hour.

I make up stories about them...

That guy over there is a soldier just recently returned from Afghanistan, struggling to fit back into civilian life or sleep later than 5AM. He's crept out of the house while his family still sleeps so he can have breakfast at a time that he's become more accustomed to...

That woman there is sneaking home after spending a night at her lovers house, grabbing a quick coffee before racing home to beat her husbands return from another night shift...

The grandmother there is struggling to control three kids dumped on her by her ingrate children...

It can keep me amused for quite awhile...

It's a nice sensation, however false - of superiority.

I was here before the place was despoiled by the hordes that will soon be pouring through the many doors, jostling and scrambling.

The teenagers in their secretive little groups, the girls giggling and flicking their hair, the boys furtive and so projective of non existent confidence.

The grannies with their hand carts and purple rinses.

The busy moms with two sulking kids in tow.

Yes it is nice, like being first to the Christmas tree on Christmas morning.

Try it one day - I highly recommend it...

.. on being a slow learner

So... the photo is of one of my favorite T-Shirts - Talk about appropriate but of late I've begun to think I may yet have to hand it on...

I was over at my good buddies house several weeks ago and it was a little beyond cold.

It was the type of biting cold that has cues of brass monkeys lined up outside the local wielders shop... if you know what I mean..?

So he's rummaging around trying to find dry kindling and fire starters and stuff - but all to no avail.

The best he could manage was a pile of semi dry chunks of timber and a bottle of some mysterious fluid called Shell 'Fuel light'.

Really, the lack of any instructions indicating what the product was even meant to be used in, should have been the only warning necessary...!

But having dissuaded him from using 98 octane petrol I figured this, roughly Kerosene smelling fluid was a much safer bet than that and therefore we stood a far greater chance of coming out of this fiasco alive, regardless of what it was.

Petrol! Good grief!

My only advice was simply, "looks to me like it's a fuel you can light".

Talk about the blind leading the blind..!

We trundled back inside the house beers in hand, guffawing loudly and being generally manly.

Both his kids were sitting on the couch, glued to the TV. Two boys, 4 and 2 years.

The fireplace is situated on the wall opposite the couch. It's one of those enclosed types with the glass door at the front. The old fire place was an open type and the new one had been installed recessed into the old one so that the door was now flush with the wall. The old mantelpiece was still in place and it was above this, that a large LCD television was mounted.

My mate threw the armful of wood blocks he had brought up from downstairs into the open fire box and proceeded to pour liberal amounts of 'fuel light' over it. After he spent a few minutes of futile searching I tossed him my lighter and leaning in from his kneeling position he flicked the lighter.

"...chick..."

Bawhooomph!

As far as I am aware flame fronts travel at the speed of sound or faster, approximately 300 metres per second. So if there was any credit I could give my buddy at this point it would have to be that he traveled backwards 1 metre in 3 100th's of a second! Impressive! I think even Usain Bolt would feel threatened. And we wonder why sometimes we wake up the next day after an event like this and our neck is sore or our legs ache or there's a strange twinge in our lower back... Speed of sound movement takes some muscle!!!

Anyway, my mate is still on the floor albeit no longer kneeling, looking for all the world like a possum thats just chewed a high tension power line - theres no hair left on his arms, the bald spot in the middle of his head is, well... balder and his eyes are as round and black as a man who's doctor has just told him, he'll be chopping his cock off today!

I eventually managed to stop laughing and after we assured the two boys that this was all a very normal part of getting a fire started (...we couldn't have them rushing up to mom when she got home and spilling the beans. That sort of shit will have you sleeping on the couch for a week!) I decided it was time to step forth and apply my excellent skills to the task at hand.

"So" I said, somewhat waspishly, whilst snatching rapidly, "gimme that lighter you homo, before someone actually gets hurt!"

To be honest, I was surprised that the front of the television was still intact. The fireball that had belched from the fire box had been quite spectacular and had ballooned outwards at first but had quickly flared upwards as it had died and I had seen the outer membrane of the screen buckle.

"Look" I said, in an altogether far too haughty tone, "It's all rather elementary me old mate, the fuel is obviously... somewhat volatile, so what we need is a wicking effect". "We need an absorbent material that will contain the fluid and not allow too many vapors to gather in the air space within the fire box".

Having not just given myself an 'insta-tan' and having used the same technique on a number of occasions, I was feeling entirely superior at this stage.

I grabbed two paper towelettes from a roll in the kitchen and proceeded to form them into rough ball shapes as I made my way back to the lounge room.

I knelt in front of the fire and placed the balls of paper on the grate. I then proceeded to slowly and carefully apply a trickle of 'fuel light' over them. When I was satisfied that the paper balls were reasonably laden with the solvent I placed the little timber blocks in a small pile on top.

"There" I said brushing my hands on my jeans. "Now we simply light the paper and they will work like a torch or much like the wick of a candle, far less dangerous and likely to hurt the kids" I said, a hint of self righteousness creeping into my tone. "Wheres that lighter...?"

"... chick ..."

Bawhoooomph!

If anything I believe my fireball was bigger... but my air of superiority had lulled me into an altogether false sense of security and alas, I did not move backwards at the speed of sound!

What a pair of fucking muppets!

The kids of course have come out of their television reverie and are wanting to see a repeat of the action filled fire lighting game!

I've now got brown hair and a lot less fringe and arm hair and... much to my chagrin I'm now equipped with the apparently, popular, 'insta-tan'!

Oh the shame.

Pride as always, truly cometh before a fall.

I will never forget my friends sideways stare and singular, scorched raised eyebrow. Cutting...

The house smells like the local hair dressing salon on free hair straightening day and it wont be long before buddies better half will be home...

Fast forward to last weekend -

My mate and I have been standing around in his shed drinking beer and bullshitting each other for most of the afternoon. Most of our hairs grown back and by some degree of luck (and a little bribery) the boys haven't told mom what went on and we haven't been sprung by the good wife for endangering her beloved boys. All is well.

At some stage later in the afternoon the lovely wife ahoy's out, "you guys look after the kids I've got to go to the shops" and, "hey it's cold, can you get the fire started please".

Funny you know - 6 Heineken's down and everything just seems so easy...

We roll upstairs after she's left to check on the boys and light the fire.

Damn all the Metho's used up. Never mind, grab that bottle of fuel light over there mate...

So this time my buddies very careful with the amount of the wretched stuff he applies and makes quite sure there is only a hint on the, this time, dry kindling.

"...chick..."

Bawhooomph

"Roll you fool, roll..!!!"

Turns out the stuff is for use in pressurized lanterns and is volatile PLUS!

I think he deserves my T-Shirt.

Currently listening to:

Slinky Factor 3

Nice n Urlich

..and dumb moments

Some-days I still manage to be amazed by my own idiocy.

I was at the mall last Saturday trying to get organized before the shops closed for Easter Sunday and Monday.

While I was wandering around I thought I recognized a woman I hadn't seen for many years.

I had spotted her from several yards behind and I called out her name and began trotting after her. It seemed she hadn't heard me so I called out to her even louder and sped up to catch her.

When I was only a couple of feet behind I called out her name again and raised my hand to wave.

She turned around and I realized that this was not the woman I knew!

Rats!

So all I had to do was stop and say, "oh sorry, I thought you were somebody else".

Right?

But no, not I.

Instead, I pretended she was not the focus of my attention and carried on trotting past her calling out the same name and waving like a fool!

I thought to make an escape into the next shop but before I got there another woman turned around and looked at me curiously.

Damn!

A quick calculation of the number of people in front of me meant that this could take some time to resolve...

Still waving like an idiot and running, I carried on past her doing my best to continue with my facade. I shot around the corner of the next annex and dived into a store.

The attendant looked up at me and said, "can I help you?".

"Yeah" I said - "How about you kill me now!!?".

How embarrassing! - What an idiot!

German people rock!

Far too often I've heard people say German folk have no sense of humor.

Well I beg to differ.

I work with a brilliant German engineer and yesterday he proffered me such an awesome piece of comedic genius that I felt it was my duty to share it with you.

He rides one of those massive Japanese motorcycles designed for long distance cruising - to work most days.

During the course of the day yesterday the back tyre went flat and he came to ask me if I could give him a hand to get it into the motorcycle shops repair van.

Dang! That is a heavy beast. Nearly 400 pounds!

Anyway later that day they came and dropped it off with the repaired tyre fitted and I didn't notice it was there until he fired it up to leave at the end of the day.

I shuffled over and said to him something lame like, "ah, I see they've managed to get the air back down the bottom again". He smirked and I continued, "what did they find in the tyre?".

I wondered if it was a nail, broken glass a screw perhaps?

He looked at me and with perfect timing and in his thick German accent said,

"holes".

..and gawd I hope I cant get in trouble for this one even now...

My cousin Richard always lived on his parents farm in Waiuku.

He lived with his older brother Peter, his mom Judy and his father Jim

We weren't even real cousins to tell the truth. But you know how it is when your little and your parents have close friends and hang out with them a lot, you called their friends, aunt and uncle and by default their kids became your cousins.

My cousin Richard and his brother Peter had a big farm.

My sister and I used to stay there during school holidays - if we were lucky.

I loved it.

It was a frigg'n huge farm!

We used to roam it.

They had.. waffles, mushrooms, frogs and opossum's, cats and chickens, pigs and gigantic corn fields and cows, calves and goats, puppies, tractors and motorbikes - guns and swearing, tree houses and real bows and arrows, lots of roast dinners and grandfather clocks, a ballroom and an organ...

You never got bored there - you got tired!

.. and when you got tired there - you got fed.

It was uber awesome!

My mom was pretty cruisey when it came to letting kids be kids - but aunt Judy made her look like a strict disciplinarian.

Aunt Judy was way cool.

She had eyes that twinkled at you when she smiled and she was always smiling.

She giggled too.

I didn't know any other grownups that giggled.

And when she laughed she could go from a chortle to a guffaw.

Aunt Judy knew how to laugh out loud.

Uncle Jim, on the other hand, was taciturn and serious.

He was always working on the farm, up before the sun for morning milking and home again about lunch time, then back out on the farm for more maintenance work before afternoon milking.

We never messed with him, he could swear real loud.

There was always little jobs to do like getting eggs from the chicken coop, putting feed out for the cows and feeding the calves, but when that stuff was done we were free to do anything we wanted.

So Richard and I roamed the farm - shooting things and riding things. Talking rubbish and seeing how long we could hold on to the electric fences. Chasing the chickens and seeing if we could tackle them. Cuddling the piglets and trying not to get bitten by the sows. Shooting at the cows from long distance with the .22 cal and subsonic rounds! Boy stuff Hell yeeeeah!

One day during our meanderings in the very furthermost paddocks from the homestead we happened upon a very large, very old tractor wheel, It was laying on it's side covered for the most part with overgrown grass and weeds. The tire was flat and the steel rim was quite rusty but after pulling back the overgrowth it was obvious it was intact.

It had been abandoned I assume by my uncle Jim probably 30 - 40 feet from the top of a ridge on the southwestern side facing towards the farm house but several miles from it.

After several attempts to move it we figured that uncle Jim had most likely fitted a spare one to his tractor when this one went flat and as is the way with farmers, drove off in his repaired tractor and never bothered expending the energy required to go back and get the flat one.

At the top of the ridge and looking down the opposing north eastern side it was clear paddock for four or five hundred yards before a fence line bordered the grazing paddock running parallel to the ridge. On the other side of the fence was what is colloquially known as a "bush block". This consisted of five or six acres of native bush which lined the remaining several hundred yards of the north eastern side of the ridge we stood on top of and ran all the way to the gully and creek at the bottom. The other side of the creek was where the nearest neighbors section met uncle Jim's farm.

Five hundred or maybe more yards yet further down, we could just make out the roofs of several of the neighbors utility sheds and the top of their house but from our position it was much too far away to make out any people.

Richard and I decided that being as we were so far away from any prying eyes it would make great sport to roll the old wheel down the hill and watch it crash into the bush block. We didn't really give much thought to the damage it would obviously do to the fence surrounding the bush block as many of uncle Jim's fence's were in a continuous state of disrepair and one more wouldn't really be noticed.

It took us the better part of the day and all of our combined ingeniousness to release the wheel from the firm grip mother nature had taken hold on it over the many years the wheel had been abandoned. But by prising with old fence posts and propping it with large chunks of concrete we obtained from an unused and crumbling cattle trough we eventually managed to get the wheel to the top of the ridge.

Between the two of us we struggled to stand the beastly heavy bastard upright and attempted to align it so it would obtain maximum speed before crashing as deeply as possible into the bush below us.

It was a no brainer really. The slope on the north eastern side was very much steeper than that on the side where the tyre had lain, so basically all we had to do was point the wheel anywhere at that bush section and it would connect!

So sweating and swearing we gave the behemoth a final shove and watched fascinated as it quickly began to gather speed...

It took us about five seconds to realize that we were much too young to understand the laws of physics, we were nine years old, what do nine year olds know of potential and kinetic energy or about mass, inertia and gravity. What we did understand and what soon became abundantly clear was that we had entirely underestimated the monster we had released!

Our fascination quickly turned to disbelief as we watched the wheel gather ever more speed despite its flat tyre until the speed of the wheels descent completely overcame the handicap of the flat tyre and the whole abominable heap began to bounce, striking the little ridges that cows make when walking across the side of steep hills. Due to the ever increasing pace that the wheel was gathering the bouncing soon turned into leaps and while still at least only half way to the fence the leaps had changed into gigantic bounds!

One particularly evil bounce saw the barbarous brute land awkwardly and to our despair the angle of decent began to change and the hideous monster, now bouncing nearly twice its own height, was given another clear two hundred yards of paddock to roll down and was now beginning to run parallel to the fence instead of directly at it!

It was at about this stage that we realized how far out of our depth we had quickly become and I know that I personally wished we hadn't had the stroke of genius that saw the wheel begin rolling..!!

By now the wheel had reached a truly horrendous speed and wasn't so much bouncing anymore as much as it was flying!

When it finally reached the fence bordering the bush block it was nearly at the very bottom corner of it, where the neighbors fence met uncle Jims.

With a gigantic and spectacular vault it completely hurdled the remaining bush section without even the least of contact and at a guess I would estimate it was probably approaching fifty odd miles per hour and bouncing a good fifteen feet into the air whilst covering more than twice that much ground!

To our discomfort it continued steadily at an ever increasing rate of velocity down the gully towards the neighbors homestead half a mile further down the hill.

It was a strange time from memory, the wheel had become so distant now that it appeared to be going quite slow however as Richard and I were both painfully aware - this was an illusion!

The Gargantua was gaining speed every second and we could easily see that some bounces would have it at least four or five times it's own height above the ground and we, or at least I, wanted to run away, as if not seeing what would happen next, would mean that it didn't...!?

People I shit you not - given the mass of that bastard and taking into account the square of it's acceleration, the amount of energy that it could unleash on ANY stationary object would be dynamic to say the very least!!!

Seriously this thing would smash a house into kindling!

..and so with the clarity that can only occur in the face of inevitable disaster we watched horror struck as the bouncing colossus smashed through a fence surrounding the neighbors buildings of which we could only see the roofs and disappeared. I can only assume that it had jumped/rolled into the main driveway area for the homestead but an instant later we saw it leap clear over one of the half round corrugated iron utility sheds before it vanished from our view altogether. It was much too far away to hear any noise or screaming but we weren't hanging around to listen for any - I can tell you that much!

We scuttled off home like a pair of beaten dogs, ears back and tails tucked firmly between legs! We were pooing ourselves - the power of that wheel had been truly awesome!

We spent the afternoon being very helpful to aunt Judy volunteering to do all the crap chores hoping that when the crunch came aunt Judy might come to our rescue - the whole time crapping our pants waiting for the neighbors car to arrive...

..nothing!

Uncle Jim came in at dinner time and we trembled our way through the meal waiting for the explosion that would signal our discovery and a thorough whipping of our asses - but it just never came...

This is complete conjecture on my part but I can only assume that by some freak chance the Godzilla wheel missed all of the neighbors structures, careened off into their paddocks and came to rest without destroying anything that attracted their attention to it. Lord knows.

I live in hope that two small boys don't come upon it one day and decide it would be fun to watch it roll down a hill...

..and tandem bicycles...

I would just like to say thank you to everyone who sent me their nightmare recipes.

Thank You.

The concept is still a work in progress (but don't hold your breath) I will get there.

Yes David. B I'm sure LSD, Ecstasy, Morphine, BZP and Pot do create weird dreams, but mate.. I really just wanted to keep on the right side of the law and it was about food my man.. food - you know that stuff you put in your mouth for nourishment... thank you anyway your views were insightful and.. errr, sort of appreciated. (*note to self* - delete Dave's emails and remove his address from address book, clear browsing history and empty cache!)

I don't usually like to put photos with my blogs but not everybody knows the area I'm about to describe so I thought Google maps could come to the party and help for those not familiar with Auckland or the Auckland museum.

View Larger Map

This story came back to me because we needed to borrow a fork hoist from a company down the road the other day and nobody from my workplace except myself was keen to drive it for fear of doing something stupid and damaging it. It's always a bit of a bummer when you borrow somebodys, anything, and take it back damaged. Yes?

This line of thinking reminded me that, this is not always the case.

Some years back myself and my friend Mike were at a loose end early one Saturday morning. We decided it would be fun to take a ride around the Auckland museum on a tandem bicycle which you could rent cheaply from a stand set up outside the main museum entrance.

We headed off into the city keen to have a bit of a peddle, soon enough we found ourselves at the bike rental stall itching to get cracking.

We flipped a coin to see who would be in charge of steerage, (I secretly thought that losing this toss would really enable me to win by virtue of the fact that Mike wouldn't be able to see what was happening in relation to peddling...)

Mike won the toss and happily climbed aboard believing himself the more fortunate to be controlling our direction...

Our instructions from the bikes owners were quite clear, we were free to ride anywhere within the grounds of the museum, but only within the grounds.

This in itself constituted a not unsubstantial amount of area, consisting of many pathways and roads including the botanic gardens and the Wintergarden.

Being sound of body and simple of mind this didn't present much of a challenge to two rapscallion delinquents such that we were.

Lacking any better direction other than that of our own infinite wisdom we decided that nobody would be any the wiser if we trundled off down to Stanley Street.

Either road that leads down to Stanley St would be a pleasant coast, although to this day I'm lost to explain why we would want to go that far downhill, being that it would be a rather hard slog on the return journey.

I am also at a loss to explain why we then decided that rather than take either of the long winding roads to the bottom of the hill, it would be far more clever to ride directly down hill over the grass and through the trees...???

For those of you unfamiliar; the Museum is situated atop a reasonably high point overlooking Auckland harbor and in relation to Stanley St which is almost at sea level, not a long distance separates the two.

This means that the incline towards Stanley St from the museum is reasonably steep, especially in a straight line, unlike the two roads which follow the natural line of the ridges and wend there way gently down to Stanley St.

It didn't take us very long to realize that the hand brakes the bicycle was equipped with were next to useless once the wheel rims became wet from the last of the mornings dew.

It was also not very long before we had picked up a substantial amount of speed.

Application of the foot brake was beginning to become perilous as this more often than not started us on a slide that several times threatened to dismount us both at speed.

I suppose.. in retrospect, that this would have been the paramount moment in which alternative options should have been embraced.

To be honest that moment came and went in a flash of scratchy bushes and dangerously solid looking tree trunks!

Before either of us realized what was happening we were thoroughly out of control and were now haring down the hill at breakneck speed, only able to slow our breathtaking descent by the most minimal of degrees. Several times we crashed painfully through small shrubs, unable to avoid them. Bursting out the other side shredded and lacerated, leaves and twigs in our mouths and hair. It was without doubt, luck, that kept us astride our mount. (.. actually - given a moment to ponder, I think now, that staying astride the cycle was more a case of not wanting to hit the ground at that speed, more than anything else!)

It seems from memory that at no time did the opportunity arise to make a safe dismount before without warning we streaked from the undergrowth and plunged several feet from the grass level, off the cut out embankment and down on to Lovers Lane, one of the roads we had been so clever to avoid at the beginning of our safari.

Lady luck played her part well and although we landed heavily on the tar seal road perpendicular to the traffic flow in either direction no cars were present at that precise moment!

We may have bounced.

Personally I don't recall that particular detail. I do however remember the excruciating pain in my tail bone.

As we had both been standing on the pedals during this whole stunt we were spared the majority of the impact via our knees, nonetheless the impact had of course been significant. We had both, despite our crouched positions landed heavily and slammed hard into our seats greatly bruising our posteriors and in my case snapping one peddle off at the crank.

Next I knew we had shot over the edge of the opposing side of the road and down the grass bank on the other side.

As fortune would have it, the bank on this side of the road was yet again steeper still than that which we had already descended.

We were soon to discover that our heavy landing had in fact done a great deal more damage to the cycle than it had to our bums.

It seemed that apart from my only having one pedal, both wheels had become a little out of shape and were wobbling in a most unsettling manner. Of most concern however was the realization that in the smash to the road the back wheel had now become locked via the chain to the remaining pedals. The front pedals and my singular rear pedal were now being rotated at a fierce rate by the back wheel and neither Mike nor myself were in anyway inclined towards attempting to put our feet near them.

Once again, in retrospect, throwing ourselves to the ground or tipping ourselves deliberately over would have brought forth a far more optimal outcome as that which occurred - but such is retrospect...

We were now both forced to sit on our seats and we no longer had the comparative luxury of standing on our peddles and using our knees as shock absorbers. The jarring our butts were taking was horrendous and did little to help our general stability as once again our downward pace began to increase. Denied what little braking we had managed via the foot brake until now, our headlong dash became evermore menacing.

I know what your thinking - "why didn't you just put your feet down". The truth is that at that speed all of our focus had gone from stopping - to surviving!

While Mike was doing his best to navigate our dumbasses around the obviously more deadly obstacles and through only the softest looking shrubs my focus was entirely put to gauging when I should brace for impact!

Within an instant we came upon the next bank cut out for Lower Domain drive and as we burst through the bushes and flew through the air three feet above the tar seal I was certain that we were about to die a most painful death, if not by colliding with a motor vehicle then certainly death would come from having a bicycle seat rammed brutally up ones anus!

Once again lady luck played her part on the vehicle front, although a car coming downhill but still someway up the road must have received quite the nasty surprise as we appeared without notice and airborne, to land with a jaw breaking crash on the opposing side of the road. Such was our velocity I believe we made the center line before touchdown! The pain in my buttocks was a whole new level of discomfort and I was certain I had heard a tearing noise!

Mike had ended up sitting sideways looking up Lower Domain Drive as my handle bars were welded to his seat and in the last moments before sailing off the embankment I had instinctively, and with the adrenalin strength of ten men, forced my handle bars around in a futile effort to turn us away from the road.

Our luck unfortunately or fortunately, however you would like to look at it didn't hold and as we careened off the edge of the road again our sorrowful ruin of a cycle snapped cleanly in the middle and Mike and I flew inelegantly, limbs akimbo several feet further downhill from the road edge. We both landed heavily and terribly awkwardly in the scrub and shrubs on the very steep side of Lower Domain Drive.

Both Mike and I were most likely concussed, as best I recall at that point, there was a period of darkness.

When I moved next I remember feeling that I was a player in a rather surreal pantomime.

Mike was still on the ground laying on his back with a vacant and rather squirrelly look on his head. I was still holding on to my handlebars, complete with Mike's seat but the rest of the execrable cycle was not to be seen. We were both covered from tip to toe in grazes, scratches and cuts and one of my shoes was rapidly filling with blood that was pouring down my leg from somewhere...???

I only vaguely recall us checking each other over, Mike had a reasonably deep cut on his forehead which was bleeding profusely but I'd had enough cuts on the head playing league to know that it was mostly superficial and probably wouldn't need to be stitched.

Embarrassingly it was while I had the back of my shorts pulled down so he could check my butt to see where all that blood was coming from that I noticed an old fellow standing on the edge of the road gazing down at us shaking his head and tut tutting...

Turns out I had quite a deep cut half way up my back and it was dribbling quite steadily down my back and leg.

We staggered around searching through the undergrowth until we found the tattered remnants of the much abused and miserable cycle and began the long and painful walk back up the hill.

What I can clearly remember, was wondering how we were going to get away with this fiasco and despondently calculating what the replacement cost of a tandem bicycle was...

Unbeknown to me, Mikes expression of disconsolate concern was not due to his having vaguely similar thoughts as I, but was in fact just a case of mild concussion.

I can only imagine the image we must have presented on arriving back at the bike rental stand. Both of us cut, bruised and bleeding and each carrying a half a bicycle and an assortment of ruined parts.

Before I could begin to explain and to my utter disbelief, Mike threw his wreckage on the ground with complete disgust and glared dangerously at the bikes owner, to this day I will never forget his exact words.

"So", he spat accusingly. "Are the bloody pedals meant to fall off these fucking things!". "Are they meant to snap completely in half!". "Did we ask to rent two unicycles, NO WE DID NOT". "We were damn near killed today!".

With a final look of absoloute distain at the hapless stall owner he hobbled away in the direction of our car. I quickly followed his lead, throwing my pieces of cycle onto Mikes pile, casting what I hoped to be my most withering look of revulsion at the now completely flummoxed attendant.

- "Are they meant to snap completely in half?"-

- Oh my god! - Now that my friends, is gold.

Currently Listening to:

Good Charlotte - Good Morning Revival.

..with sinus pressure!

So I've had a bit of an end of summer cold and I thought it best to stay away from work for awhile being as it’s about 30deg C in the work place and the huge array of fans would have sent that bad boy virus racing around the shop faster than a nip slip photo of Angelina Jolie would circulate the Internet!

On the second day away I rang the office and couldn't get hold of anybody so I decided it would be best to ring the boss directly on his cell.

He’s a bloody good sort my boss and we have a brilliant relationship, considering…

(story to follow… one day… maybe...).

While I was talking to him I was struck by a revelation, not quite an epiphany… no… definitely a revelation, but nevertheless engaging.

I had woken up and for whatever reason - either I had slept on one side of my head longer than the other - or the pressure on one of my sinus was greater than the other, I can’t be sure but I'm thinking probably the later, one of my eyes was lower or higher on my head than the opposing one.

I shit you not!

My head/face was all kind of lopsided…???

The first that I noticed of this enigma was that my vision was kind of blurry.

Not so unusual when you've got a cold right?

I went to the bathroom to look in the mirror.

Not a lot of joy there, my vision was so blurry I couldn't really make out my reflection.

It took me awhile but I finally managed to haul in some focus and yeah… my face was all bung!

You know what...?

It didn't bother me in the least.

So when I was talking to the boss on the phone I said to him, “dude I’m just ringing to let you know, today is a ‘no show’ for me”, he laughed and said something like “from the sound of it I’m not surprised, you sound like you've got a head full.”

I explained that my face was all cockeyed into the mix.

I guessed that most people would be horrified.

He wasn't of course because it wasn't happening to him, but… neither was I.

Then it struck me!

I said to him, “You know what mate?”

“The one upside of taking so many drugs when I was young is that when something like waking up with a cockeyed face happens because you've got a massive head cold, you find yourself staring in the mirror saying – oh well... Ive seen you looking much worse Daryl”.

“Nature did this to you and Nature will most likely put it right again”.

And that is the truth! It really is. It wasn't some green or red or purple little pills that did this so unlike those times when one eye was pointing up and one eye was looking left, this mornings little setback was nothing to get even slightly flustered about!

It’s small compensation for what I may have done to my kidneys or liver during those crazy times but heyyy… you wont find me freaking out when I wake up looking like a Scotsman has lost control of his Caber and tossed it straight into the side of my noggin.

WOOT!

Currently listening to:

Bubbles in my sinus and ringing in my ears.

....and nightmares!

I know this is going to sound a little strange but by now I should imagine your getting rather used to that...

I love a good nightmare.

As I once said to my friend Brigitte. A good nightmare is like the best fun park ride ever, without the queue's, the smell of vomit, candy floss in your hair or the struggle to find parking.

A good nightmare is value for money.

You know how it is when you wake up - panting, sweating, sheets soaked and tangled incomprehensibly around your body like some mystical yogi has come into your bedroom while you were sleeping and practiced his speed turban wrapping techniques and then blasted you with piss. You need a good few minutes to be completely sure that vagina's don't really have teeth or that you didn't fry a friends dog in your moms swimming pool that had mysteriously transformed into a gigantic deep fryer!

..Then comes the feeling of relief - it washes over you like cool waves of wind from an oscillating fan in a hot office - it's a real ride maannnnn!

Anyway, yeah I love it and some time ago I began experimenting with different foods just before going to bed in order to see if there were any foods in particular that would bring about the onset of night terrors.

It turns out that I personally got the best results from Dairy products like cheese and yogurts but high protein foods also scored reasonably well and the sure winner was anything that is extremely hard to digest. Combinations of these foods produced some spectacular results!

I have to be honest at this junction and admit that although I was meant to be experimenting with foods I had noticed that quite often when the sheets ended wrapped around you that this would somehow become a feature of the nightmare. Soooooo... one night I tied my ankles together with a bungee cord. The resultant dreams consisted of many trapped, maimed, unable to run away and drowning themes. The real nightmare was attempting to leap out of bed for a midnight toilet dash...!!!

The reason for these experiments, with the food at least, was to collaboratively put together a small book which I hoped to call "The Little Nightmare Cookbook". Basically it would become a list of recipes for other freaks like myself who enjoy a good 'mare'. And I hoped to present a series of recipes and list the potential themes one might expect from the resultant nightmares.

Weird - I know but hey, the interest at the time of poking the idea out there was surprisingly high!

Well the project has been on the back burner for quite awhile now but I now feel that the time is indeed ripe and I would like to get this project back on the move.

So please, although I have my own material what I really need is as much information from other people as possible. So if your mom or dad ever used to say to you, "you shouldn't eat blah, blah, blah before going to bed, it'll give you nightmares" please, tell me what it was that they believed you should have been avoiding.

Ask your friends, ask your parents and if you would be so kind as to forward your recipes to me at nevereverbloodyanythingever@gmail.com I would truly appreciate it and of course full credit will be given to those who's recipes appear in print.

Just in passing - my mom always said that you should never eat bread, spread with marmite or vegemite toasted with melted cheese on top before bed - to date, this concoction holds the current record for most vivid, terrifying and sustained nightmares... I highly recommend you try it - no really.

Currently listening to:

Dire Straits - Making Movies

Extreme Picnic - Compilation CD from Tanny and Mikes Wedding.

..with spear guns and stingrays.

My son Luke has become quite the outdoors man much to my delight.

It seems that everything we participated in together while he was growing up, he has taken to, like a duck to water.

Surfing, fishing, hunting, fast cars, excessive alcohol consumption and now diving.

He has become insanely keen on free dive spear fishing, something I have always been enthusiastic about due to the teeming fish life to be found around almost any rock outcrops on any part of our coastline.

When Christmas arrived it seemed obvious that what he really needed was a good quality spear gun and.. despite some very vague misgivings I had about spears in feet, it seemed the choice was a good one.

He has just purchased a new car (new to him). And as is often the way when young men get themselves a new vehicle, the first port of call is dads to get the broken bits fixed!

So while we were pottering around trying to get the headlamp high beam to stop turning on when making a right hand indication, we got to talking about his latest escapades below the waves.

I had noticed he seemed to be limping slightly and appeared uncomfortable when crouching in some positions, when I inquired to the reason he told me it was nothing really and a bit of a long story...

"Excellent.." I replied, "regale me...".

He and a good friend and fellow fisherman had driven some way north of Auckland to a favoured spot and decided to swim quite a way offshore to a small island probably 500 - 600 metres out.

The water was quite murky and after some time in the water Luke was tapped on the arm by his mate who indicated that they should stop to talk.

It seems he had become a little disturbed by rather large shadows he had seen circling them on several occasions. Luke having seen nothing similar and never one to be easily frightened or put off by the threat of danger put his head down and continued swimming towards the targeted island.

They eventually made their way ashore this tiny rock and took the time to catch their breath before Luke flopped back into the water.

The pickings were scarce for some reason... (for those of you who have as much experience under the water as I, you will know there can be several reasons for this but usually one really obvious one...)

So while Lukes friend sat on the rocks of the island Luke continued to slowly circle the water smashing up shellfish and sea urchins in an effort to attract more fish to the area.

Nothing doing...???

In what I can only imagine was an act of frustration borne of late adolescence he decided to launch a spear at a very large sting ray that was cruising the bed. (Once again; experience in this area was quite obviously absent!) He caught it somewhere directly behind the head in the thick fleshy area devoid of any critical organs where it lodged beautifully as per design.

and off they went...

..Luke refusing to relinquish his spear, the ray, probably only barely aware of a slight irritation and a bit of extra drag through the water began to head out into deeper territory.

This action placed Luke in somewhat of a quandary: being that the ray was probably close to his own weight and was well designed for the environment there was every good chance it would be able to drag him below the surface, but to cut the line connecting the spear to the gun would be to lose the spear...hmmmm (once again that much needed experience was sadly lacking).

So kicking frantically he did his best in an attempt to maneuver the beast toward a small mound of partially submerged rocks.

Always so understated; Luke spoke of struggling a little for a small while but did finally manage to get within grabbing distance of the rocks whereupon he wrapped one arm around them and hung on. His snorkel was above the surface and for the moment he took the opportunity to gather his thoughts, re-group his thus far, shattered ego and make some decisions about how best to move forward from his rather sticky predicament.

Well as it turned out it didn't take long for the situation to resolve itself.

With a gigantic heave the ray decided it was done with idling on the spot and it happily snapped the 300 pound break strain line connecting spear to gun and glided off with all the nonchalance of a bear sporting a tooth pick in its fur.

Bugger! No spear.

To be truthful, I was pissing myself the whole time he relayed this to me and finding the fault with the indicator in his car had ground to a virtual stop. I had managed to wipe my eyes and was about to get on with it but no - there was more..!

Having recovered from the disappointment of losing his spear he decided to make his way back to the place where his mate was sitting on the island and was surprised to find that the friend in question was jumping up and down waving fit to burst pointing and shouting at him.

It took him some moments to interpret the impromptu sign language but eventually realized that his mate was not pointing at him - but just slightly past and behind him.

Turning in the water he was confronted by the sight of a rather large tail and dorsal fin slicing through the water coming directly at him. Sore calves or not he reckoned he managed a good 5 knots through the water and his hands barely touched rock as he flew out of the water and stood gratefully on solid ground beside his near hysterical friend.

Together they watched the shark slowly circle their little island.

It's a great leveler the sea.

That kid of mine will fight anyone of any size and he's pretty damn handy, I'd have to give him that, but there was no way he was getting back in the water to swim those 600 metres to the shore.

And so, there they sat...

..luckily its summer and they both had wetsuits on.

After several hours a coastguard boat turned up to tell them that they should be careful swimming around the island because sharks had been sighted in the area...

I nearly wet myself!