Why the Mumma learned to motorbike

Learning to ride a motorbike has never been on my bucket list. Happiest manning four wheels, or my own two legs, I’m not even that confident on a bicycle.

But I suppose, given the fact that we brought four motorbikes with us to the Island, I must have known deep down that there would come a reckoning, a jump-on-that-bike-Rethenwyn-or-be-left-behind type of moment. That and the fact that D’Urville Island is made for motorbiking.

And oh boy, is it made for riding!

My pre-Island motorbike experience

One of my earliest memories comes from when I was about eight. I was riding a friend’s mini motorbike when I froze mid-turn and carried on going straight…into a ditch! Thankfully, I was fine, but my confidence was not—no one else had crashed that day!

It took me a another 28 years to find the opportunity, and inclination, to even sit on a motorbike again.

Cue Oxford (Canterbury plains, New Zealand) and children with dreams of launching double backflips to roaring crowds—YouTube has a lot to answer for!  With lots of pocket-money saving, their rationale went thus: we have plenty of space (we lived on six flat acres), being able to ride a motorbike is a great skill, being able to handle a clutch an even better one, it will be more fun than anything else we’ve ever done….and so on, and so forth.

To be honest, it didn’t take that much to convince Danny, and as our motorbike collection grew, I felt completely satisfied just learning how to start, stop, change from first to second gear, and manoeuvre very wide turns.

That was it, my motorbiking cup was filled.

And then we moved to D’Urville Island.

What changed?

A change of scenery does not always denote a change in self—believe me, we’ve moved around enough to know! And that’s why it took me a good few months of living here to realise that embracing the motorbiker within needed to be a conscious choice. And here’s why:

1. We have a dirt-biking paradise on our doorstep
From the wide-open nursery terrain in the valley bottom, to the steep winding tracks on the hills, to the endless kilometres of empty dirt roads, D’Urville Island is made for fun on a motorbike. Even I, with my limited skill, had to acknowledge that this was once-in-a-lifetime type of set up.

2. I didn’t want to be left behind
Seeing the boys jump on their bikes and go, it became obvious that motorbiking would be an integral part of our Island experience. With this came the realisation that if I didn’t pull-finger and practice my skills, I wouldn’t be a part of it.

3. I wanted to set an example
Not often have I been a mum sat on the side-lines. Call it homeschooling, call it parenting, call it being a glutton for punishment, where possible I’ve striven to join in with my children’s activities. I’ve wanted to model to them that you’re never too old, or incapable, to get stuck in, give something a try, and have fun doing it.

This attitude has resulted in some pretty interesting experiences—being the only adult in the line-up of a beginner speed-skating race, and landing a front somersault on the trampoline being a couple of memorable ones.

How then, could I back away from learning to ride a motorbike?

4. I was afraid
‘It’s too cold’, ‘I’m too tired’, ‘I don’t feel like it’. Let’s call them what they were: excuses. The real reason I was resistant to riding the bikes? Fear. Something about feeling out of control, at speed, made me want to bail.

And there was no cheating this one, I had to face it.

Acknowledging that fear was clouding my choices, I decided that if I couldn’t trust myself, I would trust Danny. He knew motorbikes and he knew my skill level. If he said I was capable of riding somewhere, then I was. Mental discussion over.

Taking up the challenge

Once I decided to get on with things, I knew that although the flat valley bottom was a great place to start, I wasn’t going to get very far trundling around in second gear through the long grass.

What I really needed to do was conquer the hills.

But first, a bit of scene setting. To get out of the valley and up to the main road, there are two tracks, affectionally referred to as the ‘high road’ and ‘low road’—their names giving invaluable clues into the steepness of their terrain. Though both tracks are rutted and slippery when wet, and best attempted in a four-wheel drive with off-roading tyres, the low road takes a longer route, snaking gently up the hill, whereas the high road cuts a mercilessly short path up through the pine forest—a frenzy of steep gradients and hair-pin corners.

Did I mention that riding around tight corners freaks me out?

So naturally, the first time I agreed to accompany the boys up to the mailbox, Danny told me we’d be taking the high road. Was he out of his freaking mind?! Instantly I started backing up with lame excuses as to why I couldn’t now join them in their happy fun.

Danny, four words: ‘You can do it.’

Damn, I hated that I had decided to trust his judgement.

But I gave myself no choice. Following in the wake of Danny’s bike, I inched up the hill in first gear, focusing on deep breathing and talking myself around every corner—mentally congratulating myself each time for not crashing into the bank or riding off the edge.

I may have been slow—Danny’s DRZ 400 hovered on the brink of stalling the whole way up—but I managed to stay on my bike. By the time we’d ridden the 5km up to the mailbox, my exhilaration was not even dented by the exclamations of Rowan and Sol, how they’d nearly fallen asleep from been waiting so long!

It was only when Danny turned my bike around and I saw the hill falling away from me that it hit me: going downhill was scarier than going up.

I learned a lot about my breaks that day!

The fun had just begun

Conquering the high road was only the start. Once I could ride myself up and out of our valley, I was struck by the realisation that I suspect has fueled the passions of many a motorbiking enthusiast: two wheels could take me places that four wheels simply could not.

One stunning gem of an example is the sweeping vista afforded from a further motorbike scramble up the rough and rocky terrain from our mailbox. Here we can breathe in the wild Island wind whilst looking out to mainland Marlborough Sounds, through French Pass, across the Paddock Rocks, and around the D’Urville coastline to our valley.  

Sitting on my motorbike in this vast, isolated spot, reiterates every inch of the achievement of getting myself up here.

And then there’s the kilometres of Island roads that have taken us all the way to their end, at the point where the exposed farming hills present a world-class dirt biking dream.

Here, I am content to stick to the farm tracks while the boys off-road down and up terrain that scares me just to bear witness. Though ever vigilant of hills that drop-off into cliffs, they’ve also learnt not to ignore the jumble of confusion that results from excited farm dogs. There was only one collision.

Angela’s track

Perhaps one of the most memorable adventures we’ve had was trying to get the motorbikes back up to the main road from a friend’s ‘boat access only’ property. The ‘track’ that leads up the hill from her place may have been passable on a quadbike at once, however, years of rain, overgrowth, and neglect have made it not only slippery and steep, but also deeply rutted and pockmarked.

Getting down is a thrilling, but fairly straight-forward task (for the moderately skilled biker), but getting back up, not so much—as Danny found out to his detriment. Having thrown caution to the wind (and, I might add, despite my warnings) he decided to bike down. Alone. It then took him nearly two hours of half-riding, half-hauling his bike to get back up—a 40 minute journey by foot!

Later asked by me whether he felt like giving up, he said he had to remind himself of where we live. He knew had one of three options: One, get the bike up the hill by himself; two, abandon it where it lay and come back at a later date when reinforcements could be mustered; or three, call in the barge and boat his bike out!

Not to be undone, we came back in convoy to conquer the track together—with the addition of a biking neighbour who was keen for the challenge. Though Rowan and I elected to leave our bikes at the top of the hill and walk down (merely getting there had been achievement enough), Danny, Sol, and our friend took the plunge and rode all the way to the bottom, galvanised by comradery.  

Thankfully, their gamble paid off and, with more hands to help haul bikes out of ruts and stabilise them when they lost traction on the steepest climbs, they made it back up the hill in a fraction of the time it had taken Danny by himself. (The fact that the track was dry this time, probably also had something to do with it!)

Sol’s Suzuki DRZ 125 was the lightest bike, but he was still only twelve, and his sense of satisfaction no less diminished.

So much use

Bringing motorbikes to D’Urville Island was one of the best decisions we could have made. Not only have they been immensely fun, they’ve also been a great means for getting from A to B.

And it’s not just us who have enjoyed them either. Much like mussel-buoy riding, motorbiking has become synonymous with visiting our valley—all children leave with new found skills.

The boys’ smaller, steady, four-stroke bikes have been ideal for people to learn on, race around on, vault homemade bike jumps on. Only ‘Annabelle’s corner’ on the High Road bares testament to any type of trauma, and the young lady in question remained intact enough to get back on the bike and finish her ride—albeit she had a bruise for months!

The enthusiasm has been so great in fact, that on one occasion we followed in the ute behind a convoy of five motorbiking teens on our way to climb the tallest mountain on the Island. A spectacle I won’t easily forget, the young people leading the charge in their willingness to take on the task, enjoyment overflowing.

The motorbikes even played a part in our annual summer scavenger hunt, which saw Heron jumping on and taking charge of the bike me and her share. Though not quite as driven as the boys, she is capable of demonstrating her biking prowess when she wants to.

Every time we leave the Island to resupply we’ve had to get an extra consignment of fuel. Not for the ute you understand, but for the motorbikes!  

Endless challenge

Can there ever be complete mastery of a motorbike? I’m starting to think not, at least not here on D’Urville where there is always a more rutted, steeper, more slippery track to learn how to hang on to.

Maybe, then, there’s only mastery of self? Fear confronted! A total appreciation for the experience and what it’s taken within you to get there…

A year ago, I would have questioned who this woman was, riding these hills, if not with reckless abandon then at least with only modest caution. Surely not me?

But yes, here I am. And what’s even more surprising? Here I am achieving what I hitherto thought was impossible: actually enjoying the thrill of being impelled along on two wheels.

• 
  Why the Mumma learned to motorbike
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  Sourcing our drinking water from the top of a waterfall—now that’s refreshing!
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  How to hang out washing in 60 km/h winds
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  We found the best use for a mussel buoy—ever!
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  What we caught in the pig trap (hint: It wasn’t a pig!)