A puncture, a bike ride and a disappointment – 26 January 2021


Today was the day we were due to get the car back.  As the work was going to be done during the day we decided to ride the Frankton trail to Queenstown.  It was a perfect day for it and we wandered down to grab our bikes.  As I rode out of the garage it became apparent that I had a puncture.  Not a biggie and in no time I had the wheel off and the tube taken out.  I carefully checked the tyre for a nail or other sharp object but nothing was apparent.  I could not find the hole in the tyre either.  When I went to put in the replacement spare tube and pumped it up, it was apparent it had a hole in it too.

Fortunately, there was a bike shop in the nearby Remarkables Shopping Centre, so we wandered off there with the wheel. A young man carefully inspected the tyre and found a piece of glass that neither Bev or I had spotted.  In no time at all he had the new tube in and we were wandering back to the hotel to put the bike back together. 

The ride to Queenstown was really easy and delightful.  It is about 10 kilometres each way from our hotel and took no time at all.  It is a well used trail by commuters and recreational riders alike. 

Queenstown was like a ghost town compared to our visit there last Friday when it was quite buzzy.  We had  seen a news item commenting on how it had been busy over the Christmas /New Year period but that now it was very quiet similar to the off season.  Indicative of this, we had noticed when travelling around Frankton, a large paddock full of Camper Vans going nowhere.

The hotel we are in is very quiet and there is one nearby that I discovered has very reasonable prices for a studio apartment.  I guess some of the hotels will be mothballing themselves.

A call to the garage revealed that the fuel injector had been replaced but that there were still some issues and we would not be getting the car back until late morning at the earliest.  It was a real disappointment as we had hoped to leave early the next morning.  To briefly anesthetise ourselves we had a beer on the waterfront before riding back to the hotel. 

We had planned to go into Queenstown for a nice meal but didn’t feel like it after hearing about the car and instead decided on a takeaway pizza.  It was after that we discovered a very nice little Italian restaurant within walking distance of our hotel, run by Italians, where could have had a nice and very reasonable meal.  However, by then we were committed to  our takeaway .  We did however enjoy a Lemoncello whilst waiting for our pizza to be cooked and it turned out to be very tasty, and as close to Italian that we have had in New Zealand!


 


Comments

  1. Lewis27 January 2021 at 20:18

    Hi there, enjoying the blog. Have you got the car back yet?

    ReplyDelete

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