Summer seems to have been a long time coming but things have warmed up a bit lately (still plenty of rain and damn wind about at times though) and it's been nice to remove the warm liners from my gear at last...

Last night Brian gave me a bell and said to let him know if I was going riding today as he was keen to get his Connie (it's "near new" with only about 50,000km on it) out for a ride.  Well, I guess that (and the nice morning) gave me a bit of an incentive to get my act together and drag the Connie out of the shed.

After fuelling up in town we made our way out to Ashhurst where we turned up the delicious Pohangina Valley East Road to make our way around the "New Loop".

The road was in ok condition with not much in the way of wreckage on the road although the chooks at Umutoi were out dicing with death on the road again...
Umutoi - just past chicken corner...

When we arrived at the turn-off to Apiti we went right instead of left to take us through to Rangiwahia instead.  It's a really nice little bit of road and I really like the drops down into the valleys to cross the river and then the climbs back up.

Rather than carry onto Mangaweka we turned left through Rangi and made rapid progress back to Kimbolton for lunch.

In Kimbolton we were surprised to find that the cafe is not open on Sunday's so crossed the road and fuelled up at the pub.

Two Connies and a shut cafe
Even a sign welcoming usAfter lunch we cruised on back ...