Camp Genorators

[johnr]

I was looking for some stuff and stumbled across the following scritchings.  I have no idea why I wrote it down or for whom. It may have been for WG but I don't remember ever posting it. Maybe someone will enjoy it.

Beware the Jabbawock my son, beware. Here follows a cautionary tale regarding generators and camp sites.

I used to attend a winter motorcycle rally in the North Island of NZ called "The Cold Kiwi"  There would be about 900 odd motorcyclists camped up in the snow about 3500 odd feet above sea level in an area which is the closest thing we have to a desert.

On one occasion, a group came who were more than usually organized. They had brought a marquee, electric lights, electric blankets and a 240 volt generator to run it all. It was unheard of to travel to this event by anything but a motorcycle so they carried the big stuff in a sidecar attached to an old A10 BSA.  It broke down about 170 miles short of the site so they towed the outfit the rest of the way with another bike. Given the road conditions up there at that time of year it must have been quite an epic ride.

By about 2AM on the Sunday morning,  the house sized camp fire had burned down and we all had suitably imbibed various forms of personal 'anti freeze' and staggered and weaved our way to tents and sleeping bags. All was quiet as only a crisp still night in snow could be. Well, all except the "pop pop pop" of that blasted generator.

I was lying in my sleeping bag having increasingly gothic thoughts about those guys and their generator when I heard a series of curious noises. They went like this;

Crunch crunch crunch (of a pair of boots in snow accompanied by dark mutterings)

pause

CLANG!

Absolute silence (including a total cessation of the above mentioned popping)

Crunch crunch crunch (of a pair of boots in snow accompanied by merry giggling)

Absolute silence

I smile as sleep gently overtakes me.

[Muzz]

Now THAT I can understand John

[oldbike54]

 On the behalf of generhaters everywhere , kudos to the Jabbawock 

 Dusty

[pete mcgee]

That's Gold, absolute Gold.

[Chuck in Indiana]

I understand that a potato stuffed up the exhaust of the offending motor home generator quiets them right down.

[Kiwi_Roy]

I spent some time in National Service (the NZ Army) we were camped in the same area at the high point of the desert road.
The usual electrician was away for the weekend so he left me, a radio operator in charge of the big 4 cylinder hand cranked diesel generator.
I woke up in the middle of the night to silence, in the dark, oh shit, now I'm in trouble.

Have you ever tried to hand crank a large diesel and bleed the injectors at the same time?
Somehow I got it going again, not a word was said.

[johnr]

That's Gold, absolute Gold.

Thanks Pete. I had a bit of a look for pics and I do have some from The Cold Kiwi rallies , but given I was using a camera made in 1913 and didn't know what to do with it anyway,and then there is the degradation you seem to get through scanning, I didn't come across any worth putting up. I need to get them all organised.

[johnr]

I spent some time in National Service (the NZ Army) we were camped in the same area at the high point of the desert road.

You know exactly where we were Roy. The Police didn't. At least not then. They must have at subsequent Cold Kiwis as they were letting us through the road blocks when the Desert Road was closed by snow and ice.

The first time I went to that rally it was with about a dozen other Norton Owners Club members. (Auckland).

It happened to be the first of the big rallies. We went home on the Sunday via various back roads over to the West.   Going though Te Awamutu  we got pulled over by the local cop on his Triumph. We weren't in any trouble. It was just that he had been listening to events unfold while on duty that weekend.

It seems that the cops in Taupo had been getting into a right old tiz. They had contacted their offsiders in TaiHape and jumped up and down about Hundreds of motorcyclists coming South to them. The TaiHape cops, equally excited said "No, you have got hundreds coming your way!"  To them we seemed to disappear into thin air!   They then got hold of the Army! "Nothing to do with us!" said the Army. The Guy in TeAwamutu was giggling all over his face about it all and just wanted to know where we had been. 

The other entertaining thing on that trip back involved a Commando Roadster. This was the one with the tiny tank and high pipes. It had a good rider and was extremely difficult  to keep up with, or would have been if he didn't have to stop at every petrol station he saw.  On a curly little one lane back country blacktop a guy with us on a UJM thought he would give it a go.  The rest of us, being more sensible traveled at a less illegal pace. 

Round a bend we came to find UJM and rider firmly embedded sideways in the soft clay bank of the next one.  I took us a little while to get him an the bike out. He was fine, except for feeling a little foolish, and so was the bike. The imprint he left though was a perfect negative half model. I wondered how long it stayed there, and I should have thought of photographing that!