The Stockade team enjoy meeting fencers from up and down the country… When Stockade Market Manager, Christie Stanton, crossed paths with Gregg Holmes and Max Walton, she was captivated and jumped at the chance to share their story with WIRED. It’s a tale of travel, adventure, and the saving grace of great fencing skills.
Down to the wire ADVENTURE BEGINS, 1984 Gregg Holmes caught the travel bug
as a young trainee from Ashhurst on a
seven-month international agricultural
exchange to Canada. Alberta seemed like ‘tractor heaven’ and with a few weeks off to explore Canada, the US and Mexico,
he awakened his wandering spirit. On his return home he picked up a fencing job
to finance his next adventure – Denmark. He fenced some more before falling into
sheep shearing with nil experience - plenty of enthusiasm and credentials as a Kiwi enough to satisfy the Danes.
FAST TRACK TO 2020
the Southernmost city in the world, 45,000 kms from Alaska and ready for his next leg.
72 HOURS AND DOWN TO THE WIRE In Argentina there is talk of “Italy.” That’s not Gregg’s intended destination. “Talk of ‘COVID’.” Within 12 hours, national parks are closing. A notice comes from the hostel. “Argentinian borders close in 72 hours”. It’s a heart-stopping 3000 km ride to Buenos Aires. Gregg must transit through a small section of Chile, then back into Argentina on the same day. The government issues an edict requiring any person entering the
some fast talking Gregg is on his way and locks in a flight with LATAM Airlines. Things change rapidly: Flight cancelled. Rescheduled. On, off. No airport entry without a valid ticket. No valid ticket. Starting to panic. No commercial flights. Last hope: a government-sanctioned flight to San Diego, Chile. Full lockdown, curfew, military – everywhere. And a flight!
TIME TO REFLECT Auckland, 25 March. It is Level 4 lockdown. Gregg arrives, holds up in an RV and recalls how earlier life plans had sent him on a different course.
The Kiwi fencer and, now, international
man of the land, is heading South across continental America. With cracked ribs,
doped up on pain killers and fighting an onset of hypothermia from the chilling blast of an incoming Artic storm, he is living the dream!
Gregg is crossing the globe top-down from the Artic Circle to Sub Antarctic
South America, and then beyond, on his
Honda Africa Twin, 1000cc dual-purpose adventure bike. He rides from Alaska
arriving in Alberta 30 years after his first stint there. He is back on the combine
harvesters. This time they are the latest high-tech million dollar, GPS auto-steer machines. Then it’s onward to Utah in subzero temperatures followed by a relaxed trip to Panama.
In Panama, Gregg connects with an
engineer, an Indian National, who he’d
met in Alaska for 10 minutes. The pair
have arranged to ride together and cross the water to Columbia on a 113-year old,
Gregg Holmes Honda Africa Twin, 1000cc dual-purpose adventure bike, Artic Circle
steel-hulled ketch to avoid the Darien
Gap – a mosquito-infested jungle, almost impenetrable and notorious for its
poisonous snakes, escaped murderers and drug barons. Then it’s a four-day stomach-churning sail to safety.
Finally, it’s smooth. It is land. Dust, gravel, and roads less travelled from Columbia to Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile. Finally,
Gregg is standing in Ushuaia, Argentina,
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ISSUE 60 / MARCH 2021
country to be quarantined for 14 days. This
“Returning from Denmark 30 years
checks. Gregg is detained. He is issued with
agricultural pilot. I took a job at Lochiniver
instigates a series of roadblocks and police
travel papers to move through checkpoints. No, there’s a misunderstanding. They
are not travel papers at all but notice of
quarantine. Leaving the hotel means risking arrest. The embassy is no help. The police, doctor, and interpreter return and with
ago I had a grand plan of becoming an
Station to set up two big tractors they had brought over from the States and ended
up staying for 6 ½ years, getting married and having our first child… Flying went out the window and I moved North, to
rural South Auckland, where I invested in a WIRED MAGAZINE