300km - 4hrs : 14min.
After breakfast and packing, we ride down to the headland for a walk out to the lighthouse.
Great views up and down the coast and back across the bay.
The lighthouse is perched an some rapidly eroding sandstone full of shell fossils some 2.5 million years old.
And so for our final days ride back to Wellington. Another loop on secondary roads heading for Martinborough. A trendy town with all the usual tourist trappings of wine outlets and upmarket "providores". Plus expensive real estate. Picture postcard village square surrounded by period buildings. Very comfortable!
Still, lunch was good, and the coffee excellent!
After lunch, south to Lake Ferry and a loop around Lake Wairarapa.
Lake Ferry is on the mouth of the Ruamahanga River on a small estuarine lake. Perfect conditions reveal the mountains round Marlborough Sound on the South Island. To the west the Rimutaka Range separates us from Wellington Harbour.
Back round the western side of Lake Wairarapu, with the Rimutaka Range looming to our left, and views to the east across the lake and the flats of the valley to the golden rolling hills of the Wairarapu.
Featherston and the highway up and over the Rimutaka provide more exciting riding, before our descent into the Hutt Valley and the final stretch into Wellington in the late afternoon.
Back in Karaka Bay after an amazing month of motorcycle touring on what have to be the best motorcycling roads in the world. 8,310 km of riding. Perfect weather apart from a couple of days in Blenheim. No problems with bikes. Excellent travel companions. All safe and sound. What more could you ask for?
Tomorrow back to OZ and start planning the next trip!
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