Somewhere Completely Different

Now this is somewhere completely different, we haven’t stayed here before.  After travelling south for 90kms we finally arrived.  We are spending the next two nights parked up in the car park of the Petone Working Men's Club. 

Why? – you may well ask.  To make it easier to attend an early morning  hospital appointment.  We arrived early in the afternoon to the completely empty car park,  plugged in to one of the four power sites available, then went to the reception area to enrol and settle up the very reasonable fee.  So far we are camping all on our own, but who knows how many other travellers might be stopping by for the night.

All alone in the back car park

The PWMC has a busy bistro and offers tasty, very reasonably priced meals.  It was pork chops for him with a couple of pints to wash it down, and scallops for her.  An early evening  “Tea Dance” was taking place on the dance floor and we watched as the couples danced the Valletta, Maxima, Quickstep and Waltz, before moving on the Rock’n’Roll and Jive.  They made it look all so easy.  Some of the couples were dressed in toning outfits, and looked like contestants in TV's “Come Dancing”. 

Walking back to the car park we discovered that we were no longer alone, three others had joined us for the night.  In fact, one camper van was parked  in front and had us hemmed in.  To her credit, the owner tapped on our door to enquire if we wanted to leave bright and early the next morning.  She had just travelled up from Christchurch and intended to sleep in, she told us.  As we were both planning to stay two nights, it wouldn’t be a problem, we assured her.

Five staying overnight in the car park