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The Morris Eight Tourer Club
of New Zealand (Inc)

Confession, we are told, is good for the soul. Thus it behoves me to concede that, having passed four weeks and 3,400 miles roaming around South Island by 1935 Morris 8 Tourer, I am more than ever addicted to this quaint, gentle means of locomotion, ideal for exploring New Zealand's diverse beauty. Still, I'm bound to say it's unlikely my soul will derive any greater benefit from this declaration than from the trip itself, despite an almost complete absence of the fair weather which elevates vintage motoring from the pleasant to the sublime. Meandering through peaceful countryside along narrow lanes one can readily fancy oneself transported to the 1930s. The view along the high bonnet, lamps standing proud atop the flowing wings, needles a-quiver on the dash, the faint whine of the transmission, the purr of the motor and exhaust wafting away on the breeze. The sounds and scents of the countryside, the chirping of birds and distant barking of an occasional dog, the time to be aware of all these things. Harmony with surroundings, wending a consonant path through them instead of ripping across the scenery in remote isolation.

Sunday 12th December, and the weather as I steered the Morris southwards from Auckland at 5.50am was overcast but fine—just right for a long trip, for the hood can stay up without the occupant getting cooked. But rain started at Huntly and poured down for three hours before I finally ran out of it half an hour north of Taumarunui. It was cold and mostly wet on the climb to the central plateau and through National Park to Raetihi, but the subsequent long decline caused the temperature to rise again, together with the wind, for the sixty miles of twists and turns, climbs and descents, to Wanganui. After a couple of hours' moderately demanding but scenically rewarding motoring, including lunch in one of the many pleasant picnic spots along this route, I turned off along a back road to skirt Wanganui, reaching Marton by 3.30pm after 290 miles.

It was raining steadily when I left the next day, with rain and high winds forecast for the 150 miles to Wellington via the infamous Rimutaka Range, and so it proved but for an all-too-brief fine spell at Fielding and across the Saddle Road, a stiff climb with splendid views, deserted in favour of the main route through the uninteresting Manawatu Gorge. By Pahiatua the rain had become heavy and persistent, an exact replica of conditions two years earlier en route to the Nelson rally. Reluctantly my planned back-road excursion was abandoned, for I was running late for lunch with a friend and the foul conditions did not encourage sightseeing. Greytown was relatively sheltered, but after a couple of hours with Bruce and Gerald, his cat, the Morris was soon being battered by fearsome winds and lashing rain as we struggled over the Rimutakas, precisely as happened the last time. It's rather galling when toiling against such conditions to see the modern cars whizzing by, their occupants oblivious to the foulness outside their hermetically sealed environments. The rain abated as Wellington approached, allowing the old car to dry out a little in sunshine and persistent high wind.

Another wet, windy and gloomy start at six o'clock, nonetheless I had been unprepared for the news that the Top Cat ferry could not operate because of seven-metre swells on Cook Strait. Well, I mean, it's a big ship and is supposed to be the latest thing in wave-piercing and stability. The prospect of spending more time in the rain and wind, or of returning to a crummy hotel (whose only redeeming features had been a big bath and ample scalding water), had negligible appeal, so I raced up to the Interislander terminal and just made it onto the 6.30 sailing of the Aratere—which then waited a further 45 minutes to load more people as their own fast ferry, the Lynx, wasn't operating. Nonetheless the relief of being aboard and heading away from Wellington was palpable, in no way dampened by the waves breaking right over the ship as it lurched and heaved towards Picton. Despite having been right at the back of the vehicle hold the Morris was covered in salt spray which I resolved to wash off immediately upon reaching Nelson. I need not have worried. After an hour or so of mediocre weather the rain started again, making a terrific job of washing off the salt, seriously abbreviating my intended sightseeing around the Marlborough Sounds and deteriorating into the routine downpour as we sloshed onward through countryside which is stunning on a fine day. Went shopping for postcards while waiting for my homestay hostess to return home—I had arrived rather earlier than anticipated—then the relief of being able to park the Morris inside a garage for the night and unload my gear in the dry.
 

Despite the sunshine which graced my start on the next day's travels the mercury cowered near the bottom of its scale, and in light of recent experience I suspected a ruse to tempt me to lower the hood prematurely. If that operation, and the converse of raising it, were the simple and quick job it is on modern convertibles one could afford a less jaundiced view, but the fact is that it takes some twenty minutes to unbutton it, lower the hood and straighten out the fabric to prevent creasing, strap it down, grapple with the hood bag, and stow the sidescreens. It takes equally long to reverse the procedure, so it pays to keep a wary eye on wind and weather so as not to be caught short. As luck would have it, on this occasion I could have travelled all day with the hood down. It would have been distinctly chilly in the early stages, but the very pretty road winding alongside the iron-brown Buller River from Murchison to Springs Junction would have been even more delightful. With a hundred miles behind it the old machine was really getting into its stride, but the loveliness of the surroundings compelled me to rein it in.

Just south of Springs a stop for lunch, shared with a cheeky bullfinch and a native robin who perched on my cooler bag just inches away and placed his order by fixing me with a beady eye. Thence over the Lewis Pass to Hanmer, by which time all cloud had dispersed and it was so warm that there was no alternative but to lower the hood for the first time. This procedure also lowers mechanical noise and vibration by about fifty percent and increases power, and unless care is exercised one can find the speedo needle exploring territory normally reserved for taking a run at steep hills. A twelve-mile diversion to visit charming Hanmer Springs, where we had spent a restful couple of days before the Nelson rally in 1997, then an easy run to Amberley (an hour north of Christchurch) where the carport adjacent to my motel room induced me to leave the hood down overnight.

My diary note for the fifth day reads, "8.50am start. Overcast and cold (usual for Christchurch), but proceeded with hood down on forecast of  'clearing and fine'. Within fifteen miles pouring, so hood up". Carried on to the Christchurch suburb of Hornby, where I had arranged use of garage facilities to give the tourer some maintenance. It seemed a shame to drain oil so clean, but with only a gauze filter one is compelled to follow the precept that oil is cheaper than engines. By midday,  thoroughly greased and oiled, Morris and self were back on the road, seeking the back route to Banks Peninsula.

It was an afternoon of steep and winding climbs, starting with Dyer's Pass Road which culminated in stunning views of Lyttleton Harbour. At Governor's Bay jetty an enterprising seagull stole a not insubstantial portion of my modest luncheon whilst I reached into the car for a map. The rural charm of Lyttleton Harbour gave way to tedious flatness around the coast to Little River, where the scenery came back to life. An alternative to the main road turned into a rough track at the top of a first-gear climb, so it was back to the main road and a five-mile grind in second gear to the ridge giving a spectacular vista of Akaroa Harbour, set in a huge amphitheatre formed by the mountains which encircle it. From that point to its end at Akaroa the route is scarcely level at all, one is either climbing or descending as the road snakes around the coast offering wonderful views at each turn.

Quite apart from its magnificent setting, the old French village of Akaroa has a charm and serenity the very antithesis of Auckland's overcrowded frenzy. How peaceful, how soothing for the soul it must be to reside in such a place. It was the very first European settlement in New Zealand, but only as the French sailed into the harbour in 1840 did they learn that the British had taken possession of the country mere days earlier. With nowhere else to go they settled anyway, establishing an alluring heritage of quaint buildings in rural tranquillity.

Having booked in, a little exploration was in order. After pottering along the waterfront a couple of times I headed the Morris up to the Summit Road which runs around the top of the ridge behind the village. No-one was able to tell me the height of the summit, but my guess is between 1,500 and 2,000 feet. Certainly it was a hard climb for a little old side-valve engine, some of it in first gear, but the effort was well repaid by wonderful panoramas of the harbour to the south and west, and out to sea to the north and east. Cloud spilled from the top of the ridge just above the road, occasionally engulfing both Morris and landscape. Eventual descent from this lofty, serpentine thoroughfare was as much a test for brakes as the ascent had been for the motor, which both passed without demur.

With only 140 miles to cover to Arthur's Pass, a relaxed start at nine o'clock in sunny but chill conditions took us through Duvachelle and down a winding route on the far side of the harbour to French Farm and Wainui, where the sheltered warmth and settled sky induced a lowering of the hood. Turquoise inlets studded with small craft lay far below the meandering road, the temptation to surrender to the beguiling, tranquil beauty and never leave all but irresistible. Weaving through sunlit country lanes well to the south of Christchurch, an increasing northerly caused a stop to erect the sidescreens lest my cap be carried away on a gust and lost forever, then the country lanes gave way to arrow-straight monotony across the Canterbury Plains to Springfield and the start of the climb across the central divide. The hot northerly became a ferocious headwind for the long steady ascent to Arthur's Pass village, spoiling what otherwise would have been a beautiful drive and forcing long intervals in second gear. The sixty-mile route was characterised by soaring mountains of granite, windswept vegetation, and frequent patches of Russell lupins, mauve and purple and pink.

Continued....

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