Day Eleven - Pohangina Valley and Cookie Time ride

Sherm Pic!

Dimitri itching for a food fight.

Neil, Darius (obscured) Megan, and Steve

Mal and Yvette, Bev and Clive (Jazz' brother and his wife)

Megan, Steve, Mal and Yvette

From the Motorcycles Unleashed exhibition, the crankcase on the Burt Monro replica which was built for the movie, "The World's Fastest Indian".

A Kiwi emblem on a race bike. This was Kim Newcombe's experimental race bike using a Konig outboard motor engine, which had a number of international wins.

Agapanthus everywhere

"Did I hear a zipper?"

A lichen covered table

Farm critters

Some nice looking yard birds.

Alas, the DC-3 Cafe was closing down, and only had microwaved maggot packs left. We decided to travel a bit back down the road to a very nice cafe, Flat Hills, which has a maze and a petting farm. Here is a Sherm shot of lunch. Jazz and I had a hot meat sandwich, Yvette had some fish and chips.

Cookie Time!

Vagabonds on the side of the road.

The Rangitikei Valley near Ohingaiti

The size of the arrow tells you who has the right of way. In this case, you would give way to oncoming traffic.

Red Deer

The old post office store at Umutoi, now a farm cottage

One lane bridge. The back roads are full of them.

Dirt bike jumps?

Totara Reserve, Pohangina Valley

More scenery

The back yard

The carport

Out the back door.

Jazz and Rosies Kitchen

The last day on the bikes. We are going to make it a short run, only 5 hours or so. We will travel thru the Pohangina Valley then out to the main road to get to Mangawenka to check out the Cookie Time Cafe. This is a national landmark, it is a DC-3 that has been converted into a tea-room (cafe). We saw it briefly when we came down SH-1 from Rotorua, and I wanted to go check it out a little closer... After the ride some of Jazz and Rosie's family came over for dinner. What a geat way to end the perfect vacation!