Eastward Ho - EOMR 26 Feb 2017

Well the end of another month came rolling around again. As the weather was so good, the decision was made to do something different and head a bit further eastward than normal for lunch at the Pongaroa Pub.

Something else that was a bit different was that Paul wasn’t riding today, but turned up at the meeting in his lovely silver grey E Type Jag, before heading off on a run with the Jag club. Now personally I’m a big fan of old Jags. Give me the menacing snarl of a hot straight six over the rumble of a bent eight any day.

After the Jag ogling session six of us headed off over the hills, Al and Bruce A on V four Hondas, Kim and Bruce S on 250 Yammies, an RZ and a TZR. Ian and myself on Suzuki’s, Ian’s big banger GSX-R1100 and me on the tired T500.

The general path was over The Track, through Mangamaire and Rongomai, then up Pa Valley road and turn left to Pongaroa on Route 52. Being in such rural surroundings we had to behave like sheep, with a couple of the flock breaking away and heading off in wrong directions. Fortunately they returned to the flock without need to dispatch the dogs.

As usual the food and drink at Pongaroa Tavern left everybody adequately fuelled up for the ride home. The general topic of conversation around the lunch table was what to do with a modified 2 stroke bike that runs worse than it should do stock. No consensus was reached but luckily the owner is a decent and moral enough chap not to take the suggestion to sell it on to someone else and let it be their problem.

The trip back over the hills through Makuri was pretty uneventful fun but the old T500 did take 12.8 litre into a 13 litre gas tank by the time we got to the nearest gas at Pahiatua, just to keep things interesting. By the time we got back to Palmy it was mid afternoon and some felt the call of a café to satisfy the coffee urge, while for others the call of the lawn mower was stronger and they headed home. What we all had was more memories of another top summer ride and sympathy for those who will never know that experience.

This post was brought to you by Rich, and photos by Ian.
Thanks for the spiel Rich, much appreciated :-)