2018 TT2000 - Day 9

Day 9?  What happened to Day 8?

Well...My plans had included a trip over to Golden Bay to explore a bit more gravel.  But that friendly little cyclone had hammered the stuffing out of the area.  The Takaka Hill Road was closed for a number of days due to slips (trapping my brother-in-law at his bach) and washed out a bridge on one of the roads I was going to go exploring on.

By the time I hit Richmond the road had been cleared and Dan was home but the road was only being opened for essential traffic twice a day.  I thought that I'd best keep out of people's way so they could carry on the clean-up and look after the locals first.

Therefore the day was spent in Richmond with a bit of tripping around with Dan and catching up with my sister and nieces.  We did manage to visit a great bike shop which had a number of tasty bikes to drool on - one even had a supercharger but I did not have 55k on me...

And so, Day 9 was my last riding day and obviously it involved getting me back up North and back to my own bed.

I had also made sure that my route included a little gravel on the way to Picton.  But unfortunately, after crossing the Whangamoa, when I turned off onto Hori Bay road only to find signs up saying that the road was closed due to, you guessed it, weather damage - bummer!

So, no more gravel to finish the trip off.  I stopped briefly in Havelock for fuel and that is where I caught up to the demon on the DR - dragging his surfboard on Queen Charlotte Drive.  It made entertaining viewing...

Arriving in Picton, I had time for a quick bite before riding almost directly onto the ferry.  Also aboard and tying their bikes down was another group of riders that had been on the same ferry as me on the way down.  They weren't TT riders but had obviously been down enjoying the magic of the South Island.

Is that a surfboard I see?

The big blue bikelashed down

As mentioned we loaded fairly early so I clambered up to the top deck and started working on my sunburn while we waited to depart...

Picton is a lovely spot

I enjoyed another very smooth sailing and we disembarked at about 5:45.  This sailing often catches the rush hour traffic in Wellington and I'd been thinking that I'd get home around 8-8:30 but the there was only a few snarl up's at Pukerua Bay and again at Paikok but after that the new motorway was great and I was home easily by 7:30 with smack 4,100km for the whole trip.

Another fantastic TT with very reasonable weather and some more fun exploring made for a tired but happy chappie!  Keen to do it all again as soon as possible...