Ride-In the New Year

The first day of 2009 dawned sunny and clear and with nothing in particular to do, we felt the need for a ride, so decided to go to Masterton to visit and pay our respects at my father’s grave.
 
By the time we got ready, it was 1205 when we left and a very warm 22° as we puttered along the Hutt Road, encountering the odd caged psycho, but staying well clear of trouble. There's a lot to be said for reading body language, even when it is a cage, but having plates like HIRISK certainly makes it easier to identify someone that's likely to switch lanes on you.......although to be fair, I did identify he was likely to change lanes and held back to create the gap for him, then later on the River road when he was at the back of a queue, he left plenty of room for us to slide through, as did many of the cars we encountered on this particularly nice day.
 
It was rather windy on the Hill, but as usual, a tail wind heading north, which didn't pose too many problems and as we weren't in any particular hurry, we took it easy and were soon coming into Featherston when a bird flew into the front of the bike so I paused to check the radiator was clear before heading on via Martinborough and the back route past Gladstone to come out on Johnstone St and right by the new cemetery.
 
By now it was 25° so we didn't linger too long at the graveside and were soon on our way back and this time down SH2 to visit my sister at Woodside. She was out when we got there so we had a cuppa and chatted with the kids for a bit before heading on again.
 
Coming back over the Hill was into the wind this time, which was reasonably strong, so care was taken to go down that extra gear for the exposed left handers and we were soon back on the Hutt Rd, detouring through Johnsonville to pick-up some vid's for a relaxing evening.
 
We got home at 1630, with the temp still at 20°, although it felt much warmer, and the economy was up at 18.1k/ltr after doing 250Kms for the day. A nice short ride to start the year.
 
We're off to the races at Tauherenikau tomorrow and it's supposed to be crap on Saturday (when I'm supposed to be doing a bit of painting) so I'll wait and see what Sunday brings before deciding if I have another ride before taking the bike in for a warrant and new rear tyre on Monday.