Last night I was brushing my teeth when the lights started flickering. No worries because they are not my lights but I note with modest interest that they are also flickering and dimming elsewhere in our unit. It’s my turn to share a room with Dave Mac ( in the interests of not hating each other excessively we tend to rotate who we share with). Apparently me sharing a room with him for a total of 10 weeks in America has not absolved me. Never mind. Dave and I are sharing the master room with him in the double king size bed and me in the little dog basket at his feet. So I go into the room to scratch a little place for myself and find myself walking into a scene from Thunderbirds which some of you may remember. There was the hum of high megawatt energy being shifted and the cause of the flickering, dimming lights was made apparent. Every plug in the room had several multi adapters attached with Dave emptying the grid into his multitude of electronic devices. There were beeping things and humming things. Some easy to understand like a phone and helmet comms. Some less easy to understand such as a power bank that could run Auckland for a couple of days but I suppose there is some logic. Some of the things defy my understanding and for the sake of the children I will go no further.
I shifted a bank of supercomputers and plugged my phone in to charge and went to sleep. Just as I hit rem sleep I was woken by a cacophony of noise that no person should have to listen to. I looked up to see Dave lit up by his phone with his index finger placed in the centre. Fast asleep. His neck was at such an awkward angle that he was choking himself to death and had just exuded the first rumblings of a death rattle. To be honest I wasn’t sure what to do. Should I try to resuscitate him? I pondered briefly and then did the only reasonable thing. I quietly stripped my bed and went and slept in the lounge. He is still alive.
This morning we left a slightly less cold Fairlie and ride over the McKenzie pass, down Haldon road to Lake Benmore. Haldon is a long, pretty straight road with deep drifts of gravel. It’s high speed and slightly terrifying because getting off line into the gravel drifts could lead to all sorts of mischief. So concentration required. After that we crossed Black Forest station above Lake Benmore. It’s spectacular high lunar mountains with a backdrop of deep blue lake. Big drop offs and mistakes would be bad so concentration required. Lunch in Omarama followed by a big climb over the Omarama saddle and then a long descent down the west Manuherika River which we cross 25 times. Rocky crossings and reasonably deep water means concentration required. St Bathans for refreshments and over Thompson’s gorge track where we got to witness some impressive manouvering of a large herd of sheep. Bunch of very clever dogs.
Cromwell and after all that concentration on a backdrop of extremes of heat means that the post ride beer was most appreciated. Time to sleep.
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