Tigers on the loose

In what is becoming something of a habit, this is a blog of a ride that happened in the distant past - well, the weekend before last anyway...

But it did involve four Tigers!

Well, perhaps not those tigers.  Let's try 2 800's, a 900 and a 1200.

Grrrrrrrrr!

The ride started in the magnificent metropolis of Ashhurst where I met up with Colin, his bro Dayal and Dayal's mate Brendan.

Coffee mugs empty, we mounted up and started our ride around "the loop" to Apiti.

I have to say that the roads are in really good shape given the weather we have had.  Nowhere near the amount of crap over the roads that we normally see following winter.  As we carried on past Rangiwahia and on towards Mangaweka the road was still pretty good and it was even pretty tidy through the last section which often has rock falls and mud on the road.  Just one slide on the patch of gravel that is always present where a farmer crosses the road to his woolshed...

Turning again onto Kawhatau Road we continued to avoid SH1 and stopped just short of it at the bridge to discuss where we wanted to go from there.

In the end we decided to carry on to Waiouru for lunch before making our way over to the Paraparas.  At the cafe we had the usual awesome feed but also had a run in with another dangerous looking feline.

Tiger?

At some stage during our break I floated the idea of taking Fields Track (rather than main-roading it to Ohakune and Raetihi) to Colin and he proved pretty easy to convince.  The others were unaware of the road so that meant that we really had to do it...

Fields track was also in pretty good nick but being fairly tight, windy and rough in places, it does pay to show it a little respect.  Soon we were at the bridge, and we had to show the guys the hole in the rock.

Next up was the short climb up the hill to check out the view.

I really like that blue one...

Dropping down the hill, we got stuck behind a ute but got past him pretty quickly once on the Para's proper.  We also then picked up a new buddy on a Harley.

He initially went through on us as we were being our typical law-abiding selves, but we then caught him at the first set of lights.

Somehow Colin and I got ahead of him and led him through to Upokongaro just to make sure he didn't get lost.  Safe to say that he was riding the wheels off his compressor and managed quite well to stay with the two dirt bikes.

In Upo we waited for the other two and discovered that Brendan's bike was getting a little thirsty.  Some bad maths based on guessing the distance to Marton had me assuring him that he'd make it and we were off again.

After riding through Okoia my maths started working a bit better and I also remembered that there was pumps at Fordell now.  Unfortunately said pumps were not card operated, and the tiny servo was shut.  Oh well, it wasn't my bike that was running low...

Further up the road, my maths was working overtime again and I was working out how much of Brendan's "50km remaining" we had used and were going to use before Marton.  I figured we were probably going to use all of it and a bit more so instead of taking the delightful Makuhou Road into Marton, we carried on Turikina Valley Road into Turakina where some pumps were awaiting a very thirsty Tiger.  Apparently the 800's can go a wee ways on zero remaining...

After the three smaller fur-bags fuelled up (I still had 230km remaining - love that 30L tank) we cruised on into Sanson where I said goodbye to the chaps as they continued South on the dreaded SH1.

Great little ride of around 370km on what was a cracker of a day.