Friday 11th November: We left Egmont village shortly after 9:00 am in the hope that we would miss New Plymouth's rush hour. Once again it was perfect weather as we headed out on to the Surf Highway. I guess we judged it right because there wasn't too much traffic and we were able to maintain a nice pace. A short detour at East Cape to show Mrs J where the Southern Cross finished ended up being a longer detour as we took a bit of a walk on the sea's edge.
Back on the road again and the riding was just delightful, good roads, light traffic and great weather all the way to Hawera and a fuel stop. At that point though, the traffic became heavier and our speed had to drop back quite considerably. We caught up with another rider just south of Hawera, but didn't stay with him for long. He was on a 250 with an L plate, and staying below 70 kmh. However for a new rider he appeared to handling the bike well and was confident enough in the heavy traffic. Not long after we passed him another rider came and passed us. I followed him for a while, but at Patea it was time for us to stop and have our morning coffee break.
Any riders passing through here should stop and try out Suzy Ann's Cafe; Real coffee instead of the more common machine made rubbish that most North Island cafes seem to dish out, and really tasty morsels to eat. From Patea we carried on to Wanganui and stretched our legs with a bit of a walk around Lake Virginia. As Mrs J had heard that Wanganui was a nice town we took a detour right through the main street and across the river before heading on south. It wasn't far from here to our lunch stop in Bulls where we watched a few other bikes cruise past.
So far in our entire trip, the only time we had been on SH1 was for the short hop from Tirau to Tokoroa, but now we had SH1 to face for the rest of the day. I hate Highways. However we cruised sedately down to Foxton where I caught up with one of my old school friends (that was a long time ago) who I'd missed seeing last trip. He works in the windmill in Foxton and its open to the public so there was no problem with seeing him at work. He couldn't get away for a beer though. We carried on down to Otaki for the night, and as usual went to the local pub for a beer or two and a meal. Also as happened so often during the trip we ended up taking up a table that was a usual local drinkers' table. But in this instance the local drinkers happened to be the local motorbike club, and again we ended up having a great night out.
Saturday 12 November: From Otaki it was just a short ride into Wellington and the ferry, and we rode the last section in company with a guy on a large Honda Goldwing with two USA flags on the back. He pulled off at the InterIslander ferry terminal while we carried on to the bluebridge terminal. We pulled up at the terminal where directed in time to assist a couple unload an early 1980s Harley from their van. The bike was not in going order and had no brakes. They were shipping it to a buyer in Blenheim, so they were appreciative of the assistance in unloading. More bikes started arriving, mainly Honda Goldwings. It appears that they were having the GoldWing Club AGM that weekend.
It was another uneventful crossing of the Strait, but I have decided that in future I'll be using the Bluebridge in preference to the InterIslander. We disembarked at Picton shortly at 1:30 pm and headed through to Blenheim for fuel. One cop between Picton and Blenheim, then another (mufti) between Blenheim and Renwick. The sun had now departed behind the clouds and as we headed down the Wairau Valley we could see showers starting to develop.
It wasn't too long before we were riding in those showers, and the further south we went the heavier and more frequent they became. By the time we reached St Arnaud and our night's stop, the showers had turned to steady rain. But as luck would have it, we checked into the Alpine Lodge, unloaded the bike, took off our leathers and hung them up to dry, and 30 minutes later, the rain stopped.
More to come....
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Rugby - A Hooligans Game played by Gentlemen. 
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