The day started off a wee bit cool and Colin and Dayal even got a splash of rain on their way up to my place while I stayed pretty dry on the couch twiddling my thumbs...
Coffees dealt to, it was time to get the wheels rolling and to try out our new road crossing the hill to the Hawkes Bay.
Actually, the road is really for cars, trucks, motorhomes and anyone else who holds us up on the road. It's a nice road but now us riders can reclaim the Saddle and the Track 😜
After the excitement of a new motorway (at least there are some nice views) we cruised on up the main drag and then SH50 to Taradale with the weather getting better the further North we went. It was nice to enjoy some of the nice bits of 50 in the dry.
In Taradale, we were disappointed with both the bakery we stopped at last time (and liked) and the roast shop being shut so had to try out a new cafe. We won't need to try the cafe again...
Leaving Taradale, I took a wrong turn which got us further into Napier instead of on the main road to Clive at Awatoto as I'd planned in my head and we got stuck in some pathetically slow (60-70km/h) in the 100km/h road to Clive. The ute holding us up didn't even want to pull over in the slow vehicle lane when we got to it - he got a dose of my air-horn and spots...
In Clive, we turned towards Haumoana and my memory proved slightly better with me finding Tuki Tuki Road about thirty years since I'd last ridden it. It's a mint wee road with some nice corners on it and eventually got us onto the truly magnificent Kahuranaki Road which was definitely truly magnificent!
In Waipawa we turned onto SH2 through to Waipuk before taking our usual back roads to Dannevirke where we stopped for fuel (I'd last filled up in Waipuk on our previous ride - I love big tanks).
To finish the ride, we had planned on back roads through towards Woodville and then to reclaim the Saddle but, leaving Dannevirke we rode into some rain so I flagged the backroads. Riding out of Woodville it looked fairly damp over the Saddle so I decided to gap it over the new road again. Apparently, my decision went down ok with the lads.
At the flash new roundabout, the others went left while I went straight through and was home in a couple of minutes. Not a bad little ride that ended better for us than the guy at about 2:45 in the video...
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