Molloy - The Last Hurrah

The Last Hurrah

Des Molloy

www.thelasthurrah.co.nz

Published by Panther Publishing Ltd in 2006

Panther Publishing Ltd
10 Lime Avenue
High Wycombe
Buckinghamshire HP11 1DP
United Kingdom

Des Molloy 2006

ISBN 09547912 5 8

The rights of the author have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher and/or the copyright owner.

Edited by Elsbeth McLean and Ruth Munro
Cover design: David Ronalds, Wellington
Design and typesetting: Ruth Munro, Flying Frog, Paraparaumu
Maps: Campbell Tonks
Photographs: Des Molloy, Steve Molloy, Dick Huurdeman, Rollo Turner

for Mum and Dad

who encouraged my early wanderings

Acknowledgments

To thank and acknowledge everyone who helped with The Last Hurrah would be like trying to stem the oil consumption of a Panther motorcycle a worthy but ultimately impossible task. You enabled us the thrill of enriching our lives through exotic travel. I hope you get some enjoyment and repayment from this, my version of the truth.

And from the Cabin Boy: first and foremost thanks to the road workers and engineers. Without you and your spades none of this would have been possible. Also special thanks to: Wang in Beijing; Eggi across Mongolia; Bayan-Olgii Hospital staff; Thomas and Greg from France; the biker crew in Barnaul; The Biker Bar; Rubchosvk punks; Marat and the girls of Almaty; Bishkek Hospital; No 1 Peoples Hospital, Kashgar; Haroon, AKA the Pakistani Facilitator; East West Infinity; Zahedan Hospital; Willy and Jan; Rollo; Murray and Pat of Silk Road Adventures New Zealand. All of you guys and many more that I havent mentioned helped us immensely. Most of all, thanks to Desmo and Dick for being crazy enough to want to go to these countries in the first place, and giving me the opportunity to tag along.

Contents

Note: maps are not all drawn to the same scale.

Gestation

B reath shoots noisily out of my mouth the way it does when Im extremely scared or about to tell the boss to take his job and shove it. It sounds deafening. The more I try to stop it, the louder it gets. This is so unfair. How dare my body let us down now? Weve already dealt with our versions of tempests, famines and locusts. Wasnt that enough?

We should be blissfully hitting the road through the Tian Shan mountains towards the Chinese border, but here I am in a tawdry hospital corridor watching my son Steve with a charming and vivacious young woman. Dick, the other member of the team, is back at our accommodation dutifully loading our bikes for take-off, unaware we wont be going anywhere in a hurry.

I sense Steve is concerned for me, but hes still enjoying flirting with this exquisite dark-haired, petite Kyrg. They parry and banter with smiles and light trilling laughter. There are shrugs and arm twirling gestures. She has the medical instructions and she is the key; she has the English and is telling Steve the prognosis. I must be operated on immediately and stay with them for seven days. Impossible, Steve explains. We have to travel on. She counters with an offer of four days. No! We just cant spare the time.

This all seems so unreal. Weve come so far, struggled so hard and now we are bartering with my health against a silly time scale, a paper itinerary. Im almost twitching with nervousness. This is Kyrgyzstan and Im in trouble. I feel the thousands of kilometres separating me from home. Just as acutely, I feel the thousands of kilometres separating me from the successful conclusion of this already eventful odyssey.

I try to be composed, will myself not to tremble. I want to believe in the competence of these medics, but I cant help my first-world prejudices. Perhaps this is just a bad dream, but hell, the pain seems real enough. How did we get into this mess? The start of the Last Hurrah all seems so long ago.

This project had a long gestation, a bit like an Indian wedding; all the stars had to be in the right place and the right players ready to play. But lets go back further, to before the adventure was even a twinkle in anyones eye.

I might be looking back through rose-tinted glasses, but my twenties had been a delightful period of enjoyable adventure. Back in the 1970s Id travelled to more than 35 countries on various motorbikes and quite a few more in the ubiquitous Combi van. Id even found the woman of my dreams, Steph, and in 1976 shared with her a year-long idyll riding from New Orleans to Buenos Aries on simple British single-cylinder motorcycles.

At the time I owned three of them, Penelope, Samantha and Bessie. Penelope and Samantha were 1960s Yorkshire-made 650 cc Panthers. They were the last of a long line of simple, robust machines manufactured by Phelan and Moore in the small town of Cleckheaton. Obscure and unloved by mainstream motorcyclists, they were chiefly used by that bunch of eccentric enthusiasts who insist on ruining the enjoyable characteristics of their motorcycle by adding a sidecar, then ruining the purity of motorcycling by carting their family along. These sloped-engine bangers are throwbacks to a gentler time. They are long in wheelbase and ungainly in appearance whilst only gentle in performance. There arent many folk around who would enthuse about something as ungainly and, quite frankly, ugly, but they do exist. There is a Panther Owners Club whose members love and cherish these big pussy cats, loyally defending the indefensible with a blind love. For us the love was requited. We loved Penelope and Samantha and they returned that love with untiring reliability and loyal service.

In comparison, Bessie was svelte, perky and loved by all, quite the show pony, even though already a 40-year-old. She was, and is, a delightful, semi-sporty 1937 BSA 500 cc Empire Star. Light, nimble and attractive, she had been produced by Britains (and the worlds) largest motorcycle manufacturer whilst at its peak. A stunning performer, with reliability to match, she was to have only US$10 spent on her during the 30,000 kilometre adventure. Since those halcyon days of our youth, Bessie continued to be a good friend and shared many long journeys and good times. She is now quite elderly, wearing the patina of age like a badge of honour. This doesnt stop her embarking on ambitious trips of 600 kilometres or more.

My brother Roly and an Aussie friend Lawrie, shared Bessie and Samantha, whilst Steph and I were as one on Penelope. It was a remarkable saga of guileless youth and naivety. We wandered without aim or constraint. There were numerous dramas and mishaps, many brought on by our lack of money and matching lack of caring about such a fundamental. The bonds we formed with Penelope, Samantha and Bessie became extremely strong, as these iron steeds were so central to our lives. There was a fusion, as each couldnt do their days work without the other. We were nothing without those wonderful bikes.

Unlike Peter Pan, our lives moved on. Our youth passed, we returned to New Zealand. Steph and I embarked on another huge adventure. It involved poverty and deprivation but included marriage, mortgages, old falling-down houses and four children. We each had long periods of being wage slaves. It was a good adventure and, whilst we included Bessie from time to time, Penelope lay abandoned, languishing in neglect.