As any road trip draws to its close, the draw of home tends to become stronger, and as often happens the numbers thin out accordingly, our initial crew of 6 being reduced to 3 by the last night. In order to meet commitments en-route (all three of us had places to go, Craig to meet his 2 day old granddaughter in Thames, Chris to meet a client in Hamilton, and me to visit our Pukekohe office), and had agreed on a 6 am departure – this decision made after a tasting of single malts at last nights’ restaurant. I was awake and about an hour before departure – keen to get underway, and before long we were – into the darkness of predawn Palmerston North, hopefully as quiet as possible (except for Chris who had his bike idling in the car park while he programmed his sat nav). Speaking of Sat navs, mine appears to have an “off the beaten track” mode, one that saw us at times worryingly deep into the hinterland in the half light, distant from main roads, but which saw us emerge at “Vinegar Hill” not far from Taihape, and a sigh of relief as a consequence. We’d planned on breakfast at Brown Sugar, last visited a week ago while heading south and very impressed, but alas, whilst there were signs of life no one opened the door at my knock, so we were off, Plan B being the much more humble and less salubrious “Akhor Wat” café (for sale if anyone is interested) across the road from the Waiouru Army Museum. An elderly couple (even older than us!) on an elderly Harley arrived as we were suiting up to leave, and in conversation made mention of a traffic cop lying in waiting 20 km up the road – nice to have friends! The further into the trip, the hotter it got, and an excuse to stop, ostensibly to remove layers, (and also an opportunity to shoot behind a bush). By lunch time much of the fun had gone out of the ride, buddies having peeled off, being too hot, sore bum and too much traffic – welcome back to Auckland! So 11 days, about 4000 km, great times, great fun, and laughs a plenty – Living the dream! Comments are closed.
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Don MalcolmA perfect day involves being on my Harley with a long ride ahead.
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