Coming Home

Yesterday ScooterBob and I had to say goodbye to the South Island and make our way back up to Palmy - a shame, but it had to be done at some stage...

We left Christchurch with plenty of time up my sleeves (ScooterBob doesn't have sleeves) and made our way out of the city in pretty overcast conditions with the weather forecasters threatening us with rain.  In the end we only got a very few spits on the motorway and then it fined up.

Our first stop was a quick one in Amberley for fuel and then we were amongst it again.  With so much time up the aforementioned sleeves I decided that we needed a wee diversion to show ScooterBob the inland Kaikoura route - I figured he'd had his fill of SH1...

Almost as soon as we turned off the weather improved and at the turn-off to Rotherham I pulled over to fit my tinted visor and lose the thick gloves.  Soon after we were into the route proper and enjoying far more fun roads than SH1 - plenty of corners and some interesting scenery.

Eventually we ended up back on SH1 just South of Kaikoura and settled into cruise mode for the rest of the trip (still plenty of time up those sleeves).  Or so I thought - unfortunately a nice policeman disagreed with me and printed my up an invoice on the side of the road...

Feeling a little miffed I carried on quietly into Blenheim where I stopped at a cafe for a sandwich to kill some time.  While there it rained a bit and I was glad I'd taken the sheepskin seat cover off and covered my tank bag.  By the time I'd had my sandwich the rain had pretty much stopped so off we went to get our last tank of fuel in the South Island.

Bike fed too, we had just 25km or so to ride to Picton where luck would have it, I managed to ride straight onto an earlier sailing and twenty minutes later we had cast off and started the trip across the Straights.

Landing in Wellington around 4:30 wasn't that much fun as the traffic really starts to build-up from them.  But we were pretty lucky and didn't get held up too much or run foul of the law again.

Home again by 6:30 after 4,299 fun-filled kilometers on the mainland!  Now to see if ScooterBob has had enough adventures yet...

New gallery with all pics at higher resolution here.