The beach & back

Being a nice fine Father's Day I thought it would be a good idea to go for a little potter and meet up with the old man so that I could check out his new bike properly. Chatting on the phone earlier in the morning we'd decided to meet in Waipukurau and then find some back roads.

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As the old man's new bike is an SV I had to take the Honda so that it could be a day out for the "twins". I left Palmy knowing that I was leaving earlier than Dad so I decided to take in some back roads rather than sticking to the boring old main road. First up was the Saddle and it is in good nick at the moment so it was a lot of fun heading up the hill until I got up into the mist. Luckily the mist wasn't that thick and I didn't have to ride by braille to get up to the lookout at the windmills. Quite neat seeing the windmills "stir" the fog.

From here it was more back roads into Danniverke and then another turn off at Matamau took me out through Ormondville to Takapau and finally to Waipuk where the old man had just arrived when I got there. A quick top up with gas and coffee and we headed off on Route 52 to Porangahau - a great piece of road.

At Porangahau we swapped bikes and pottered out to the beach before turning around and retracing our tracks to Waipuk - but this time trying out different steeds. Back in Waipuk we had some lunch and then headed South again. Dad turned off to Onga so he could enjoy Highway 50 back to Napier while I pottered across the plains.

After a quick stop in Woodville I took the Balance turn-off and headed home via the Pahiatua track. Nice little Sunday ride - and I've now clocked up over 1,200km on the VTR.