I had a friend that wasn’t too good he was pretty crook, my mate Deano, a bloody good bastard.

He had his Harley in my shed for years and I fixed it up for him because he wanted to ride it all the way down to Invercargill and go to Hayes museum so he could see all the Bert Munroe stuff because he was pretty fascinated about it. But he could never get his strength up enough to ride down there because he had a bad heart. He kept getting stents, had a bypass and was really crook. Man, he was done.
During a phone call with him I told him, Mate, you’d better get that bucket list ticked off.

So in the end, I flew him down to Christchurch in 2018 and said we were going to get a car, an old HQ Holden ute with a flat deck and it was a really bogan looking thing. It had big wing mirrors, an LD 28 diesel in it with a five speed and a skull lever gear stick and it was REAL bogan-ish. I told Deano what we’ll do, we’ll take the ute, we’ll have a couple of bogan wigs, mullet wigs. He didn’t like that, I’m not wearing no mullet wig, he said. Anyway, when we got to where this ute was, I wouldn’t even take it to the dairy and back man, it was stuffed you know. So I asked the guy with the ute if he could give us a ride into town and Deano was wondering what we were gonna do now. But I had a plan B.

We happened to be outside a burger place and a mini turned up and I said “Oh the car’s here mate.” And Deano goes “Car? Where?” and he’s looking around for this bloody car and the mini is right in front of us. I said “The mini man.” and Deano says “You’ve gotta be joking.” “Nah, I‘m not joking mate, we’re gonna take that all the way to Invercargill and we’re gonna take it all the way back to Taranaki. Deano said “Ya mad Hutch” … “Well maybe so mate, but it’s gonna be fun.”

I thought it’s something to remember him, ya mate, by and sort of that close confined area when you’re cruising.

He turned around and jumped in the mini, while I gave the guy some cash for the car and we drove off, heading to Repco because I noticed that the oil was a bit dodgy and the water was a bit dodgy because of oil in the water, so I got whatever additive I could find to add to it and thought hopefully it’d make it.

We spray painted “01” on the door and “Pork Pie” on the back. Deano said “I know the Pork Pie, we’re sort of going on the Pork Pie run down to Invercargill and back up. What’s the 01?” I told him, well the Dukes of Hazard had 01 and we’re probably gonna do a few jumps on the way, you know.

And we did a few jumps on the way, but because he had a bad heart, every time I did a jump over a railway line he’d pass out and he’d tell me, oh ya can’t do that Hutch, I’ve got a bad heart and I knew that but I’d just get in the moment and do a leap and he’d be passed out in the car with his head flopping round. He was in a pretty bad way but we’d always have a bit of a laugh because he was always falling over and stuff. When he’d wake up I’d always say to him, you never commit mate, we’ve been doing this for years and ya never commit to death.

Deano was a house-mover, had a company here in Taranaki, which he then sold but continued working for them, they made a good team up there. I met him when he was moving a house into our property and he was struggling because he was passing out and falling over trying to move this house. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me he had a bad heart and needed to have a bypass but needed to run his company. I felt sorry for the guy because he knew he needed to go to bloody hospital to get a bypass but he didn’t wanna stop his company , you know, so I told him I’d drop everything and give him a hand with his company while he could go and have this operation.
He had the bypass and now I think he’s had about 15 stents over the years. At the end of April 2022, he finally gave up work because he was too crook and wanted to go spend the last of his time fishing.

So he was really sick afterwards those operations so I took him to Christchurch, the bogan ute didn’t work out and so we jumped in the mini and went blasting down to Invercargill. We blew the head gasket at Dunedin, it was a bit of a laugh.

All we had was this pocket knife and the cardboard off the packet off the bogan wigs that I’d brought. I took the thermostat out with this little wee crescent that we happened to have on a keyring, and cut out this little gasket and put it back on so we could get it over the hill and we only just made it. The mini was balling it’s arse off but we got over the other side of the hill and went into Repco and got a head gasket. The guy behind the counter asked what we were going to do with that and I said that we were just going to replace it in the carpark and he said we needed some specialised tools for that, you can’t just do it in the carpark. I was gonna buy a socket set but anyways he said there was a mini place across the road, maybe go over and see that guy and see if he can give you a hand because he’s a bit of specialist and had all the tools.

So we rocked in there at about 5 to 5 on a Friday… Clint Motors in Dunedin, what that guy doesn’t know about minis isn’t worth knowing… but he told us he couldn’t do it, that it was 5 to 5 on a Friday night, what are ya thinking! I said, well I need to, I said because it’s a bit of a life and death situation here and I’ve gotta get this ticked off my mates bucket list going down to Invercargill. But he said “Nah I can’t help ya mate”… and as he said that Deano fell over and bang, hit the floor.

He’d passed out. He does it quite a bit ya know… he’d cut his face a bit and he was out cold. The guy was like “what’s wrong, what’s happening here!?!” I said, well he’s passed out but he’s got a bad heart mate that’s why we’re doing this bucket list, we’ve gotta get all the way to Invercargill and back. The guy asked “well, will he die on my floor?” and I said “well yeah, he could die on your floor alright.” “I don’t want him dying on my floor”… “Well you’d better bloody give us a hand to get this bloody mini fixed and then we’ll piss off and leave you alone and then he won’t die on your floor”.
He thought we were pretty hard case so he said we could work on it, asked if we were mechanically minded and yes, I can pull anything apart and put it back together. So he told us to work on it, pull it all apart and that he’d just show us a few pointers here and there.

So I pulled it all apart and Clinton said this is buggered, that’s buggered, you need to chuck that in there and he kept throwing parts at us from everywhere and he charged us for the parts and that, giving us a good deal. Three to four hours later we had it all back together and we were running. We’d all talked a bit of bullshit too so it was about 10pm by the time we rocked out. He was a good bugger and we ended up fixing the car and I said to him “catch ya later” and paid him some dollaro’s for the job and we went out and went to a motel and crashed out there.

The next morning we blasted from Dunedin all the way to Invercargill. Got there and me mate was like a kid in a candy shop ya know. All the world’s fastest Indian stuff, they’ve got his line up of pistons that he’s had to rebuild his motors and so forth and Deano has a smile on his face, I’ll never forget it you know. And he’s sitting in this world’s fastest Indian and we’re getting a few shots, in this little made up sort of version that you can sit in, a bit of prop sort of thing you know. It was bloody awesome and he just loved it. He said to me “man I never thought I’d ever come to this place, thanks Hutch.”

We left there, and we did another jump after that, the one we did on the way down, and he passed out again. I kept apologising to him every time he passed out, it’d only be for 60 seconds or so but I wouldn’t realise until he was flopping around in the seat and I’d notice because he’d bang into me and I’d be like shit, I forgot again… but on the last jump we smashed all the exhaust out and it banged up underneath so we lost the brakes, the brakes all went… right down by Dunedin with those big hills…. so we just used the gears until we stopped back in Dunedin, fixed and rebuilt all the brakes, got a crowbar and fixed all the exhaust because it was all stuffed up underneath from our jumps and we had to torqued the head gasket down… then we blasted to Christchurch.

Deano, he was just a pasty white sort of passenger by then, he was a bit spent from the whole mission so we stayed in Christchurch for the night. This was four years ago in 2018, so it was when that earthquake had happened, so we had to go through the Lewis Pass and everyone had said it would take us ages to get through, that we’d have to get the later ferry. So we had booked the later ferry, but we blasted through the Lewis Pass, this thing you know, goes like a go cart so everyone was a bit surprised at how fast we got there.

We got down to the wharf and it was pretty funny, to the ladies in the kiosk I said “look you know can we get on this first ferry instead of the next one and she goes oh I don’t know about that, they’re probably pulling out and she looks at Deano and goes “far out your mate doesn’t look too good” “oh well he could die any minute, because he’s got a bad heart you know.” She looks at us, looks at us both and looks in this little mirror in the back there and looks in the back of the car and she sees Pork Pie on the back. “Have you bloody idiots just been to Invercargill?” “Yeah, yeah we have. It was a bit of a hoot. We had to go down there and tick it off me mates bucket list before he dies, but he’s pretty crook as you can see and I don’t know whether he’s gonna make it home and I hope he does because I don’t really want him messing up my car.”

They reckon when you die you shit your pants, so I don’t know, I’ve never seen a person die in front of me but they reckon they shit themselves and that so it was always a bit of a joke between us... “Don’t die, cos I don’t wanna clean up the mess.” anyways moving on…

So she tells me, well I can see this is a pretty important mission, it’s a pretty calm day today so hold on a minute as she picks up the walkie talkie and speaks to the ferry, asking if they’ve untied yet, and yes, they just untied, the doors up. She lets them know, well we’ve got this yellow vehicle here and it’s a matter of life and death that they get on. Can you just lower the back door and idle there if they hurry. Well man, that‘s a bit of a risky thing, they said… but yeah well we could do that.

Someone down there would remember seeing us… she turned around and told us they’d wait for you, you go down here, over here, down this ramp, over through here and then you’ll see the ferry and jump on it… you have to hurry. And me mate Deano, turns around and goes “Don’t tell him that.”

And we just race off over all these bumps and jumps and blasted down there and hit this ramp and as we hit it all these sparks just flew out from the exhaust because it was pretty low and we just flew up, we leapt up almost airborne, I think we did get airborne a little bit.. and he didn’t actually pass out that time, he was pretty pasty white and he wasn’t saying much after though. Anyway we pulled up in there and slammed the handbrake on and all these people were just confused, like what the hell is this, you know. This is the life and death thing that’s going on? It’s yellow, but we were expecting an ambulance.

We told them the story and they thought it was pretty funny and said that me mate was a bit washed out and not too good. and I said yeah he’s not too good. But we got on the ship and sat down with some of the crew and shared the big story about our adventure and they thought it was pretty cool.

When we got off on the other end in Wellington, we blasted all the way through to home, to Taranaki and it was raining cats and dogs man, the wind wipers were hardly working, well they still don’t work very well, it’s how they are and we’re used to it now. We stopped to fuel up about 20 mins out from Taranaki and I told Deano that we’d stop at my house and jump in my car and take him the rest of the way. We’d been in this mini for four days, I think it was, so we stopped at my place and jumped into a normal car, with air conditioning and all that… it was like we’d jumped out of the mini and gone into a spaceship, because it was all quiet… and we’re sitting there listening to one of his favourite songs and he’s pasty white, pretty worn out and he just turns to me, “Mate that was the most exhilarating thing I’ve ever done in my life.” he reckoned, and I’ve gotta admit it was pretty cool and I’ll never forget it you know. I thought to myself, he’s gonna die aye, he’s gonna die tonight, you know, he was pretty crook. And I dropped him off and helped him in through the stairs and he says “Mate I don’t think I’m gonna make it to tomorrow but anyway, what a way to finish aye.” And I said “yeah mate, I’ll catch ya tomorrow.” and I left.

I left his house and I’m cruising home, I was going down this big hill and I was so tired… it was a big drive aye. And then I was just out.

I fell asleep at at the wheel and I woke up at the last second, there’s trees coming at me and I just slid the car into this big 360 in the road and I missed everything and I was like “wow!!!” amazing that I didn’t die.

And you know what, I did this for my friend. It was for my friend for his bucket list, but you know what, it woke me up because I run a business also, it’s always stressful and there’s always work to do. The thing was, this whole adventure I don’t think was just for my mate, it was for me too because it just showed you that everyone’s life is so bloody fragile and it could end at any minute, so you really wanna live life to the fullest every day of the week, no matter what.

There’s no point dwelling on stuff, what happened yesterday, what could happen, or maybe happen, because that’s all a figment of your imagination isn’t it. You’re quite mad if you start thinking about what happened yesterday too much and it’s always good to have good memories but you don’t wanna be dwelling on shit you know.

So I’ve got this philosophy that you’ve gotta do stuff. And you don’t think too much, you just do. And that’s what I did after that day.

I tried ringing my mate all morning and he wouldn’t answer the phone, he didn’t answer, didn’t answer and I thought, he’s dead, you know. He’s died. He must’ve died last night. Then he rung me up in the afternoon and is like “Hey Hutch!!! How you going??? I’m out on site!! I’m just telling them all about the story!!!” He had this whole new lease on life, sort of thing. Good ol’ Deano!