Invercargill – Home of the "World’s Fastest Indian"

Welcome Mat in Hayes Hardware Store

We are making a pilgrimage to Hayes Hardware Store in Invercargill, to see and photograph the original motorbike ridden by Burt Munro in 1962, when he set the world land speed record for its 

Claudia in front of new Burt Munro Memorial
Invercargill

class. We watched the film on the subject, The World’s Fastest Indian starring Anthony Hopkins, the night before at Charteris Bay. We’d seen it on our last visit, and I shared my enthusiasm for it with my former student, Ben, who loved it so much he watched it three times before returning it to the public library. The second time I watched it, I enjoyed trying to figure out what he liked about it. It is certainly very funny, and there are lots of motorcycles and exciting time trials. If you haven’t seen the film, you’re in for a treat – if you can find it.

World's Fastest Indian

All I can say is that Ben would just LOVE Haye’s Hardware Store. There must be at least thirty motorcycles in the store, and the one we’ve come to see is in a glass case. There are signs all over the store pointing the way for others like us who are making the pilgrimage. I guess all the tourists were pestering the staff so it’s a good idea.  It just so happens that motorcyclists from all over the world are converging on Invercargill this very week for the seventh annual Burt Munro Challenge. I guess this is like the Indy 500 of motorcycle racing in NZ.  Some races will be held on Otaki Beach, just outside town, the long beach featured in the film where Burt raced up and down in preparation for going to the Utah salt flats where he set the records. There are bikers who are here to see the legendary bike when we enter the store.

Casing for World's Fastest Indian

We just LOVE this hardware store. I would go so far as to say it MUST be the best in the world. Duncan likes the wide well-ordered aisles, and I, who like hardware stores in general because I like to look at the eclectic variety of items on sale, love the displays of motorbikes, several American cars from the sixties including a Ford Thunderbird and a Chevy Camaro and an old fashioned delivery van. Where would you ever find a functioning hardware store cum museum like this?

Just a few more motorcycles!

We are staying in Invercargill with an ATC couple, Russell and Ann Beck, who inform us that there is a new statue of Burt in town as well as a room devoted to him in the local Southland Museum where Russell was a former director. We spent most of the morning visiting these “shrines”. It turns out Burt was quite focused on his motorcycle to the exclusion of most other things in life. Coincidentally he used Russell’s father’s workshop to work on his bikes when Russell was a boy. Apparently he never held a job, that Russell remembers, he just devoted himself to working on his bikes and racing whenever he got the chance. New Zealand is a small country where it sometimes seems that all the inhabitants know each other.  The couple up at Moeraki told us that Burt’s Munro’s son is a farmer near them. Russell and Ann also know Rob Hall-Jones, the helicopter pilot who flew us over Doubtful Sound in Fiordland in 2010. In fact they practically recite his family tree and tell us how he takes after his mother rather than his father!

Also staying with Russell and Ann is a famous NZ landscape photographer, Andris Apse, who is working upon a book with Russell. We find out later that both of them have received NZ highest honour, the New Zealand Order of Merit. This is similar to Britains OBE (order of the British Empire) and CBE (Companion of the British Empire) or Canada’s Order of Canada. Ann shows us a beautiful book on New Zealand Greenstone or Pounamu that they collaborated upon in the past. We wish we could buy it and lug it home. It must weighat least 2 kilos. http://www.andrisapse.com/books.htm

Because we have to catch our flight to Stewart Island, we reluctantly leave Hayes Hardware Store wishing we had more time to get lost for an hour or so in those well ordered aisles. We really do wish you were here Ben! We’d love to see your excitement as you race to see the motorcycles and old cars.
Click Below to See Map:
http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=Invercargill,+Southland,+New+Zealand&hl=en&ll=-46.437857,168.398438&spn=25.043128,56.513672&sll=-46.980252,167.783203&sspn=24.800632,56.513672&vpsrc=6&hnear=Invercargill,+Southland,+New+Zealand&t=m&z=4