DAY 8 NEW PLYMOTH-WELLINGTON

It was a beautiful day today, this is the veiw from Allans deck.

Allan decided he would ride with us part of the way around the coastline. We set off with Allan leading the way on the Spyder. MT Egmont was shrouded in cloud.

Apparently this mountain generates its own weather systems, but down on the coast it was bright and sunny.

We stopped for an awesome brekky in the mural town Opunake.

Then on the Hawea where we said goodbye to Allan. Quite glad to see the back of him really as he was stealing our limelight. Instead of waving to us all the kiddies wave to him and yell and look at the man on his funny yellow tricycle. Now that hes gone we can get back to normal and the kiddies will start to wave to us again......... Just kidding Allan, thanks for putting us up for the night mate.

Yesterday while we were in Taupo we briefly spoke to this nice couple called Marj & Ted and this morning had a message from them to meet them in Whanganui for a drink. We met the in a bar in town and had a couple of cold drinks, which was really nice. We are Sorry we couldnt spend more time with them as they were really cool. Will have to catch up with them when we come back. (thats if I am allowed back in the country due to unpaid fines that is :-) We said goodbye to the pretty town of Whanganui....home of the whallic symbol.

We also found out this morning that a round of the New Zealand superbike championships, was being held this weekend at manfield park, so Karen set a course avoiding the highway as much as possible.

Rode through some spectacular scenery including the very pretty manawatu gorge.

We arrived at Manfield park just in time to see the last race, but we did see some superbike qualifyingwhich was great. Manfield park is situated right in the centre of the town of Fielding...how cool is that? Nearly as cool as our icecreams.

BTW can someone update me with whats going on at Phillip Island. Our email is not working so post the results here via comments. Buzz I'm looking at you.

It was getting late, so Karen pointed us towards Wellington, but not before we had an awesome sunset blast over the Rimatuka range. This range is where the Hiscock brothers & Richard honed their roadracing skills when they were younger.

At one point I was remindded of home when we passed through some typical western NSW scenery

Then into Wellington where we are staying at a Tony's rustic log cabin that he and his brother Richard built with timber thaey cut but hand from the surrounding hills.....Isnt that right Richard??????