Meandering to Martinborough

Cripes, it's Tuesday and I haven't written up Saturday's ride yet!  Best get amongst it then...

Last week was fairly dreary weather wise and Brian and I had both been hoping for a bit of a nicer change for the weekend so that we could escape on the Connies.  Come Friday night and the weather man was telling us that East was the way to go so we decided that lunch in Martinborough was on the cards.

With Roscoe piking on us we ended up leaving Palmy a bit earlier than we'd originally planned and made our way up over a wet Pahiatua Track to the Mangamire turn-off.  Great conditions for Brian to scrub in his new tyre...

There was a bit of fog just before we got to the turn-off but once on Nikau Road the mists parted and the GoPro was pressed into service.  Almost instantly we ran into stock on the road - this seems to be becoming a bit of a recurring theme...

From Mangamire we rode a short way down to Eketahuna before leaving SH2 again for the lovely run through to Mauriceville.  During the week there had been a bit of flooding over this side of the ranges so I wasn't quite sure whether we'd run into any issues.  In the end there was only wet and dirty roads taking us through to Mauriceville and then into some more fog.

Back out onto the main road we cruised into Masterton where we got fuel before the last leg into Martinborough.  We took a slightly different route down to Martinborough that actually took us out onto my planned return route but it was still a nice ride and the closer we got to Martinborough the more bikes we saw out and about enjoying an improving day.

Martinborough

Food porn - Corn beef hash, mmmmmmm...

After lunch it was time to head home and we took our normal back road route via Wainuioru and then turned off to take our old favourite Route 52 to Alfredton.

View 20-07-13 Martinborough in a larger map

Route 52 was fairly dirty and slippery in places (even the odd remnant from some slips) but we pretty much had the road to ourselves except for a few other bikes heading South towards us.  It was along here that the GoPro decided to have a hissy fit and produced these two photos five seconds apart - can you spot the problem?

Of course I didn't know this was happening I was too busy enjoying myself on a great wee ride.  From Alfredton we simply rode through to Pahiatua (dodging a slow moving hawk) and then back home over the track.  Back home about 2pm after a neat little ride with no rain to speak of!

Some of that stuff is dirt...

More pics here.

My Adv bikes...

Not sure which one is dirtier...

One is now a bit cleaner...

Picasa Autobackup weirdness

It seems that Bob is not the only one who has experienced some Picasa weirdness that's resulted in some interesting animated pics.  Picasa picked some good subject matter though:

The beautiful Mosquito warming up

And flying with it's stable mates

757 wiggling it's bum

Brian and I crossing the bridge at Haast

On/Off Update

Righto, so yesterday was my first outing with the new wireless back-pack and remote for the GoPro so I thought I'd do a little update.

So, what do I reckon?  Well, it's pretty damn good.  Using it carefully it's allowed me to make far more use of the battery - I shot nearly 10 gigs of non-HD video on one battery without it going completely flat.  No more leaving the camera on and hitting the record button when you want to film or take a picture.  It does make the procedure a bit more complicated but is well worth it:

1. Turn the wireless back-pack on.  I can see it's on by checking the little LCD screen on it's back.
2. Turn the remote on.  This then links with the back-pack and we're ready to go.
3. Select the shooting mode.  Ok, so this is a bit tricky - you need to know what each little (as in very little) icon on the remote's screen means.
4. Press record.  Away laughing.

To stop recording and turn off the camera:

1. Press the record button again to stop the recording.
2. Hold down the on/off button.  It does the normal GoPro flash, flash, flash and then switches off.
3. Switch the back-pack off.  Now everything is off and none of the batteries are discharging.

Pretty simple and it just works.  Far easier than pressing the buttons on the camera and wondering if it's actually on or recording.

Now to just work out what all those icons on the remote mean so that I can select continuous photo shooting (one of my favourite modes) instead of burst mode - spot the differences...

East is best

Recently Roscoe from work has picked himself up a nice little GSX650F and is enjoying getting back into riding.  During the week we'd been hatching plans for a group of us to go for a ride on Saturday.  We kept a close eye on the weather and kept a few options up our sleeves depending on the weather forecast.

In the end Saturday was forecasted to be pretty average here with wind and rain on the cards.  Two of our possible destinations were quickly discarded and we set our sights on a trip up to Hawkes Bay.

Patient Connie waiting at the Rendezvous

After leaving home I made my way up to a local cafe to meet the others.  Roscoe had planned to have his brekkie here but was denied due to us being a bit early for the cafe...As he pulled in also gave me the news that were on our own as Daniel had also decided to give the ride a miss.

With a disappointed Roscoe in tow I made my way up and over the track to Pahiatua.  The morning was still a little cool (especially the brisk and sometimes blustery wind) but the sun was definitely out even if it was a bit low in the sky at times.

From Pahiatua I took Roscoe through to Oringi via Jacksons and straight into that low sun.  It was still a nice little ride and Roscoe must have felt a bit more relieved when I pulled up outside a cafe in Danniverke - and the cafe was open...

Worms fed, we carried on up SH2 to Matamau where we turned off to take the back roads through to Ormonville and Takapau.  In Ormonville I waved Roscoe through on me and settled into pootle mode behind him.

Eventually we made our way back out onto SH2 just South of Waipuk and cruised through to Waipawa where we made our next turn-off.  I led through to River Road and then waved Roscoe through again to take us through to Patangata and then up Middle Road to Havelock North.  By now the day had really sorted itself out and was turning into a beaut of a winter's day.  There was also some excitement to be had at times on Middle Road...

In Havelock North nature called and while stopped we couldn't help but notice someone's nice little toy for getting to Saturday brunch:

It's red - shocker!

From Havelock we cruised onto Napier via Clive and the waterfront and then stopped in at Ma and Pa's where Dad whipped us up a quick bite and we managed to twist his arm a bit and get him to join us for a bit out trip back home.  Before you could say "Bayerische Motoren Werke", his bike was out of the shed and he was ready to go.

The trip down SH50 was a lot of fun but at Ongaonga Dad pulled over to say goodbye before he took off towards Waipawa and Roscoe and I continued South.  In Danniverke the predicted weather had arrived and by the time we hit the gorge we had absolutely said goodbye to the sunny HB skies.

We did however beat the really heavy rain and it was good to hear that arrive through roofing iron rather than my helmet.

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