A funny thing happened at Adventure Moto HQ a while back. Bill, a customer and a friend, walked into the store and spotted me … Bill: “Hey Steve, I’m coming on one of your rides in New Zealand, bro!”
Me: “Bill, we don’t have a ride running in NZ, so what the hell are you talking about?”
Bill: “Yeah, it’s an Adventure Moto NZ ride.”
I was left thinking Bill must be taking the piss, but he pulled out his phone and showed me his booking, with … Ultimate Adventure Moto NZ. WTF!
Still, I reminisced with Bill about my riding in NZ over the years. The occasional Yamaha Safari with Clubby and Geoff Ballard, and how around 15 years ago I rode the North and South Islands with my then 11-year-old daughter as pillion on a BMW 1200 GSA. Which led me to keeping a dirty little DR650 in a mate’s garage locked up in Christchurch, flying back and forth whenever I could to ride every dirt road in NZ I could find.
So in a fit of inspiration, I called the phone number on the www.ultimateadventuremoto.co.nz website — and a voice answered: “Hello, Adventure Moto NZ, this is Steve.”
“No! I am Steve, and I am Adventure Moto Australia,” I barked back. “Did Bill put you guys up to this?”
Long and the short, Steve Gillies and I quickly hit it off as we chatted bikes, rides and ADV before he offered me a spot on his last South Island Passes Tour for the season. I booked another bike for my wife, Jen, and started planning a holiday to NZ.
Steve sells the tour as the ultimate NZ backcountry adventure rider’s tour. It starts and finishes in Christchurch and the cost
