Nelson to wanganui xmas road trip

[ShaneSpring]

Hi all,
just thought I should post about my xmas road trip, was the longest trip I have taken my Vision for (as well as being two up and loaded with xmas presents)
Round trip of about 1000km with a three hour ferry trip between islands in the middle. Great weather all the way except for some serious cross winds around wanganui.

Trip consisted of nelson to picton, some nice twisty roads which i have travelled a lot was still a fast fun section, gave my wife on the back a few thrills as was her fisrt real bike trip.  ;D
Three hours on the ferry between picton and wellington as boring as ever, nice scenery and awesome the first couple of times but I have done it way too many (glad I took a book)
Wellington to wanganui, wind behind us all the way, mostly straight roads, some fun stuff up by wanganui, was getting dark as we got there.
Side trip from wanganui to palmeston north, was windy as hell but some fun roads  and better on the way back to wanganui with less wind and higher corner speeds.
Then reverse order trip back to nelson, sadly we missed the street racing at wanganui on boxing day, the amount of bikes heading up there as we were heading away was amazing, I found myself waving and being greeted by all that passed me, show how good a comunity of riders we have in this little country.

Didn't get to meet up with Kiwi_XZ unfortunately but should be up that way again soon. Got his email when i got home unfortunately

Vision performed well, was suprised how well it handled luggng my wife and I all the way, happily sitting on 110/120kmh for most of the trip. One thing though I think I have killed the rear shock, as it has lost a lot of dampening.  ???

My wife now loves riding bikes, she wants one of her own, though she has to start on a 250, so will be a time before I can buy a vision for her  ;)

I will upload some photo's when I get around to downloading them off the camera.

[Kiwi_XZ]

Hi Shane.

Sorry I missed you, had a lightning trip up to Auckland and back for Xmas.

Cheers - Shane

[Kiwi_XZ]

An excellent side trip on the way back down to Wellington from Wanganui is to cut across to the Manawatu Gorge, you do this by taking State Highway 3 from Bulls to Palmerston North then onto Ashhurst or you can cut across thru Marton then Feilding to Ashhurst.

The Manawatu Gorge between Ashhurst and Woodville has some spectacular scenery.

Turn right at Woodville onto State Highway 2 and drive back down to Wellington via Pahiatua, Eketahuna and Masterton then over the Rimutaka Hill.  The Rimutaka Hill road seperates Wellington from the Wairarapa and is 25 kms of very twisty road.  There's a cafe at the summit (2000 ft) to stop, fuel up (coffee) and admire the view.

I haven't been out on the bike for the last week, so yesterday afternoon I rode over the hill to Carterton and back.  It's a great afternoon ride, mind you, you need to watch the weather.  It can be very dangerous with wind gusts and sometimes closes with ice and snow in winter.

[ShaneSpring]

Waiting for the ferry in Wellington on a beautiful day

All tied up next to some fancy bikes onboard

[h2olawyer]

Shane -

Your XZ looks real good - even next to those other bikes!  Headlight may be a little dated but the styling of the XZ was way ahead of it's time when introduced.  Sure doesn't look like a 20+ year old bike.   ;D

H2O

[ShaneSpring]

Cheers H2O,
I think it's not a bad old beast myself, I even managed to hold off the rvf and cbr all the way back to nelson :)
I think local knowledge in the middle of the night helped though  ;D

shane