The HOG Rally pre-rally ride in the afternoon. The ride went through the Manuwatu Gorge in perfect weather with some strong winds, past the wind farm and to the Tui Brewery for a tour and couple of handles.

We spent another nice camping night at Duddings Lake before the official HOG rally start the next day.

The Hog Rally had around 1200 registrations (about a dozen Oz riders), great food, entertainment and mateship. The guy camping right next to us, just happened to have a bike identical to ours (year and model), funny as it's a very uncommon model. During the evening meal, lightning struck with an earth shattering bang, only 50 m from us, taking out ALL power and all but closed the venue down for the night with serious cable and transformer damage. The night was drenching wet, but we stayed dry, both tent and ourselves, sporting driza-bones.

After an emergency shuttle for shower at college, we saddled up for the Thunder Ride through the same gorge and then up the Wind farm and through some more scenic sites. At the Square in Palmerston North we had some games, with huge crowds from the general public, including slow ride, balls on cone's etc.

We decided to drop in on Glasshouse Mts Kiwi's (Rod) 90 year old mum (Rosemarie) at Levin for a social visit after a ride with 30-40 knots winds from the side (west). Rosemarie was very social and quite a conversationalist and we all enjoyed the visit.

Saturday night was a bit more normal with plenty of party. We met members from Dubai and Singapore as well.

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