It's all abut the bling!

Working out

 So after a sedate cruise on Saturday, it was time to get dirty again on Sunday.

Colin was keen to cut loose on his quad again so reasonably early on Sunday I loaded up the RMX and cruised down to his place where there was coffee. 

Arriving at the Maungakotukutuku Road carpark we unloaded and then took off up main track.  We had plans of investigating a number of different tracks but arriving at the top of the hill we hit a road block (if we'd really tried we could have actually hit a Dodge Ram) and important people in hi-viz.

On our way to disappointment

We soon discovered that the tracks were closed to public access as there was a silly bicycle race on.  Would have been nice to have had a sign at the carpark...

Disappointed, we about-faced and trundled off in search of some other tracks that we might be able to access.  Instead of looking for a track, Colin just turned off into the scrub...

Well, actually, it was an old overgrown track and we set about investigating where it went.  Eventually it got quite overgrown and pretty tricky for Colin to maneuver in so he sent me off to check out whether it was worth pursuing.

You can see some of this exploring in the first video below.  I eventually stopped after crossing one log safely (but hitting the bash pad on it) and then coming to another much bigger one that would have been difficult to get back over if I needed to turn around.

I then had to somehow turn the bike around in the scrub.  This involved getting it hooked up on trees, nearly dropping it, stalling it and some vigorous sweating.  Adding to the fun was that the starter didn't seem to want to play ball all day so I had the added fun of having to kick over a hot bike...

After making my way back to Colin, we decided to take another track off in a different direction.  Once again this got fairly gnarly and not long after passing Colin the poor old bike started getting a bit hot and bothered so I parked it up and we had a breather for a bit.

After our breather we continued on down and things didn't really improve.  After crossing a muddy ditch I looked ahead and only saw trees so turned around to go and find Colin attempting to squeeze through some fairly small gaps.

It took a bit of effort (and some forest realignment) to get the quad turned around and then we high-tailed it out of the mess.

Getting out on the main track, it was great to try out a few more gears and get a bit of breeze over me and the radiators but Colin did lead me off onto one more side track.  This one was a bit shorter and ended in a very steep descent where someone managed to stuff up, stall and dismount their Suzuki.  Never mind, at least I was able to crash start the beast...

Back at the carpark, we turned back up the road and went in search of some other tracks along the river.  It turned out there were quite a few that led you in and out of the river and into some mud holes etc.  A quick play in there and it was time for lunch...

Ah yes, I brought along my own chef...

Coffee and sizzlers scoffed we got back into it, following the river and searching for more tracks until we ran into the law - well some council blokes I 'spose - who discouraged us from riding in the river.  No probs, we weren't there to destroy the place, but also no signage and plenty of tracks...

A quick return blat down the gravel road and then the bikes were loaded up and we were outta there.  The only thing left to do was to go see a man about a water blaster...

Always take a chef and experienced blaster master with you on dirt rides...

So, a bit disappointing that we couldn't quite do the ride we wanted but a lot of fun anyway and a real workout in that tight stuff - my arms and shoulders definitely felt it and a hot shower was pretty damn good at the end of the day.

It's been a while...

 ...and probably too long...

But, on Saturday it finally happened!  Yes, believe it or not the poor old Connie (resting on brand new, zero km rubber) was wheeled out of the shed for a little pootle.

Following a short trip to and from the local servo the bike was parked up for a while to await the BMW rider and his pillion for the day, Suzanne.

After the obligatory coffee, we mounted up and made our way up the valley.  A cooler morning was slowly warming up to be a really nice, still and sunny day - it really made the views across the valley look pretty damn good.  Must be why it's called the Manawatu Scenic Route...

Suzanne works with Colin and Adi so naturally we had to take some caution across Adi's bridge and then stop to check out the ice...One day we'll stop giving him grief about his little whoopsie, one day.

Pretty girl

More great scenery and fun road got us out onto SH1 and the now fairly normal stop in Mangaweka for coffee and err, pies before a quiet trundle down the road to Hunterville.

Here the plan was to take back roads through to Marton but I thought that seeing we had a guest we should also pop out to the waterfall on Turakina Valley Road.  So we did.

Same pretty bike with pretty background

Back-tracking a little (and avoiding a wee bit of gravel) we were soon back on our way towards Marton.  I managed to take out a magpie along the way but Colin left the peacocks alone.

The neat little climb up Makuhou Road was once again neat, although autumn leaves across the road did slow us down a wee bit.  We slowed down even more at the top of the hill to make sure that the reservoir was still there.  It was, but I failed to get photographic evidence...

Beauty and the beast...

From there, we were soon in Marton where we paused for refreshments and a yarn before trundling off back to Ashhurst via Halcombe, Feilding and Colyton.

Superb day to be out riding and I'm pretty sure that the old girl enjoyed herself.  She's probably about five minutes away from hitting 165,000km and still an awesome machine.