The Wee Pootle

The day of the pootle finally arrived and after getting up early I jumped on the bike and headed down to meet the rest of the guys at BP Rangitikei. Waiting there was my old man (SV), his mate Goldie (CB1300S) and Steve (Twosup, 'Busa).

As we were missing a few bods and everyone other than me had already ridden nearly 200km we decided to abandon the full route and just see where the day took us.

We left Palmy just before 8am and headed out the back of Halcombe

and then Marton via some back roads to Wanganui. The weather was ok through here although the roads were quite wet in places.

Leaving Wanganui we hit the Paraparas and had a great ride through to National Park. The road was more often than dry and a great deal of care had to be taken as there were fresh slips to go along with the usual storm damage and stock. Quite chilly going through National Park too.

A quick top up for the bikes and we continued off up

to Tamarunui. We stopped here for an early lunch before heading back out of Tamarunui and up over Highway 41. Had a great ride over here as the weather had improved and the road was mostly dry. We turned off 41 onto 32 to head around the back of the lake. This is a great bit of road but we had a few drizzly patches and the roads were wet and slippery in places.

We took the Kinloch turnoff and wound our way onwards to Taupo. We stopped here for another quick pitstop before tackling the Napier-Taupo. And here's where things went a bit pear-shaped. Not long off the plains we came around a corner with a bit of steam on and there was a mufti-cop! Yep, you guessed it, he got me (TEC) while the others escaped. Great way to ruin a ride! My first ticket in 17 odd years...

After this I was separated from the rest of the guys and I only caught up to them when they became stuck in traffic. I quiet ride the rest of the way to Napier where we stopped in at the olds for a coffee before Steve and I headed back home via Highway 50.

Not a great end to the ride but otherwise it was a good day out on the bike with about 720km clocked up in preparation for the Grand Challenge.

More pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/andrew.l.thomson/130908AWeePootle#