Coming Home - Thursday

Thursday was the day that had seemed so far away a week ago and the day that we dreaded.  Yep, it was the day we had to say goodbye to the South island and head home to mentally prepare for the return to work.

I met Colin in Richmond and after a nice ride over the Whangamoa and Rai Saddles we had a quick stop in Havelock.

Preparing for work...

Next up was a trip through Queen Charlotte Drive to Picton, always a nice ride filled with plenty of corners and some really nice views of the Sounds.

We were well early for the ferry so after checking in and having an interesting chat with an government official we went for coffee before joining the queue for the ferry.

While we were waiting and chatting to some other bike riders an interesting bike turned up.

Nope, he wasn't after us - just delivering a bike from Christchurch to Auckland...And once he'd warmed up (no, it wasn't cold), we had quite a yak about bikes.  He didn't have much nice to say about the cop ST's but Geoff will be pleased to hear, he did like his Striple.

Our crossing was a bit lumpier heading North.  I even had to go out for some fresh air for a while and as we'd left late, we arrived late into Wellington too.  This was probably not a bad thing as it meant that the rush hour traffic had died off a bit and the traffic was flowing nicely.

In Waikanae, I waved Colin off and carried on North.  It was actually a really nice evening for a ride - - very calm and cool.  I probably could have ridden all night...

But after 4,240km of fun it was all over and nice to be home to my own bed.  I'm sure the Ten had a bit to talk to the other horses about too...

5,000kms, hmmmm....

Can't wait to begin planning again...