Coming Home

After finally getting a bit of sleep in our nice warm & dry motel it was nice to wake up a reasonable looking day and think about getting on the bikes again. We'd already decided that if the weather played ball we would be heading home via Taupo and Napier so that we could have breakfast at the Summit Cafe on the Napier-Taupo road.

Well, the weather looked just good enough and the forecast was good so it was all go for the brekkie run. We packed up the bikes and hit the road to Taupo. We had a quick pitstop just out of Turangi for gas and with sunglasses (wow!) on we were off.

After our big ride we were happy enough to just take things quietly and enjoy the scenery but once off the plains and into some corners it was a little hard to hold back - although I had unpleasant memories of a ticket on the Taupo road last time I was on it to keep me from getting to carried away.

Although it was still quite cool the sun was definitely out in force and it was very nice riding conditions and we were soon pulling in at the summit both really looking forward to some tucker. We were in for a very nice surprise too - the cafe is very bike friendly and we got free coffees with our brekkie. My mocca was fantastic and the cooked brekkie went down very well.

Stuffed to the gills we continued on our way eventually coming of the magnificent hilly bits and dropping into the Esk Valley. On our way through Napier we stopped in to see Dad as he was keen to hear about the ride and then we made our way out of town and onto Highway 50.

Highway 50 was great - both of us could ride it in our sleep and we just cruised on down enjoying the ride and the views. A great day to be out on the bike for sure. We stopped briefly in Dannevirke so Mark could get gas while I decided to try to make it home on the tank as I was getting very good economy.

So just one short hop back into Palmy and the ride was all over - a real shame as the weather was perfect and we both could have just carried on riding...

Just a little ride of 362km and economy of 5.25L/100km - outstanding!