| .......................................... | Holden Report - October 2k | ||
The Holden battles its way through rough storm. Midway through the month we took the Holden down to Christchurch to perform at Canterbury University's end-of-term party. The weather along the Kaikoura coast was atrocious. The rain and wind were so strong that trees were being blown all over the road. Even though the Holden weighs a tonne any speed above 55mph in this weather was extremely dangerous. Battling the steering wheel (and the tendency for the Holden to 'pull to the left') Carl and Sam manned the drive down through the night keeping the vehicle firmly on both sides of the road. The Holden's heater has stopped working again. The only way to drive in cold weather is to sit on one of your hands warming it up while the other does the steering. The idea of "sitting on your hands" was quickly vetoed! Steve gets blast of spring buds in face. During a long and rather hot trip to the South Island Steve decided it was time to take the tape off the air-vents that we had put on for our winter tour down south. Travelling at 63mph into a strong head wind Steve pulled the gaffa tape away from the dashboard to be blasted with a face full of insects, leaves and spring buds. The taped up vent on the drivers side has been left untouched! Steve gets 'Driver of the Month' for forgetting his bag after a gig at Harvesters in Palmerston North. Luckily he remembered only 15 minutes out of town on the way back to Wellington! The Holden has a new park down Courtenay place when packing gear into Kitty O Sheas...the footpath! Uncle Monkey breaks law with number plate saga... The pristine new number plates have arrived and continue to kick around the car in places that can be seen by other drivers. The old number plate that we had was sent off to the 'Orientation Festival' conference. Atleast in that way if our application is unsuccesful they know that we've sold our soul and broken the law for them! Christchurch local sticks up for Uncle Monkey's Holden. We went out the morning of our Canterbury gig to get some breakfast and Steve had to do a U-turn to get the park we needed. He didn't realise that there was a police officer behind us in a mufti car! The officer subsequently pulled up behind us and asked to see Steve's license when an angry local (from across the road) started yelling "leave those guys alone". He came over the road and told the cop to "give them a break...this is probably the only original Holden like it in town...what have these guys done?" We just stood there in amazement thinking that this is going to get nasty... The police officer told the man that it was none of his business and asked him to leave. He said "why should I, what have I done?" The cop replied with "you're obstructing the law and I'm asking you again to leave!". The parting (and final) comment from the Holden's new friend was "is that your cop out!" Holden fact No.29: Holden enthusiasts often take the law into their own hands. The police officer in the above incident then proceeded to give us some advice so that we wouldn't get pulled over. He said that if the 3 monkey's were taken off the back then attention wouldn't be drawn to the missing number plate...or alternatively we could put our one remaining plate on the back because the front doesn't have monkey's painted on it! The remaining number plate finally vibrated itself off in Blenheim where it was luckily saved by Carl at KFC. A rather large fine of $190 has arrived in the post. By chance Sam went around to his old flat to find some mail that had only arrived that day. He rang the powers at be to find that Wog (friendly Holden repairman) had parked it in a no-parking zone way back in February. The sum of $190 included penalties on top of an original fine of $60! Holden fact No.30: The Holden budget for tours is always wrong. The driver's wing mirror still hasn't been fixed. A small empty bottle of jack daniels 15ml was inserted onto the end of the driver's windscreen wiper the other night. Driving home in the rain wasn't as easy as usual as the bottle was lifting the wiper sufficiently off the surface of the window to stop it from wiping the rain away! Very clever...
Holden Report | (previous editions)
- September 2k (No issue - Holden parked up.) | - August 2k - May 2k (Special Edition - while overseas.) - April 2k - March 2k - February 2k - January 2k - December '99 - November '99 - July '99 (Special Edition - while overseas.) - March '99 - February '99 - January '99 (No issue - Holden parked up.) - December '98 - November '98 - October '98 | |