Day out with SLG Friends

 It was a lovely day out with our Super Leisure Group friends.  A real "Blue Sky" day, lovely warm Spring weather, what could be better.  We drove down to Lower Hutt, my old home town where I was born, did my schooling, grew up, and lived for quite some years.  It always feels like coming home to me when we travel to the Hutt Valley.

Five of us met at the Bluebird Eatery, the cafe at the Dowse Art Gallery.  We had a nice lunch, but commiserated about paying for parking.  (Most of the parking is free where we live, except for the main street, and I always park behind the library and walk through the mall to get to the shops.)  Some dishes on the menu were a little different, I chose roast mushrooms on toasted focaccia, very tasty indeed, and Robin had delicious fish and chips.

My mushrooms are under this salad

Sadly the photo of our lunch group turned out rather dark, and my computer will not let me alter it.  Never mind, here we all are, having a fine old time together.  The young woman manager of the cafe used to board with Trish some years ago when she came to New Zealand as an overseas student.  So she was very attentive to Trish and our group.

Helen, Trish, Jenny, Robin and Calvin

After lunch we visited the adjacent Dowse Art Museum.

The jewel in the crown at the museum is the pataka whakairo (carved storehouse), known as one of the Hutt Valley's greatest treasures.  Commissioned by Wiremu Tako Ngatata and built in 1856 under the guidance  of carver Te Heuheu Tukino, it is one of several buildings created in support of the Maori King movement, and the only one that survives intact.  The storehouse, known as Nuku Tewhatewha has had several homes in the care of a pakeha family, first in  in Lower Hutt, then Thorndon (Wellington) before being carried over the Remutaka Range to Masterton in 1912.  The passing years and the weather were taking its toll on the building, and it was returned into the care of the Dowse in 1982.

Nuku Tewhatewha

We then went back to Trish's home for a chat, followed by afternoon tea.  She had reminded us at lunch not to have any desserts as she had been baking for our arrival in the afternoon.  And goodness me, were we spoilt, she had made one of her famous lemon meringue pies!

So yummy

Our mutual friend Pauline popped in for afternoon tea too, so it was great to catch up with her again. 

Pauline, Jenny and Robin

 Pauline and her late husband Geoff joined us on our epic 3 month South Island trip with two other couples way back in 2012.  The four of us had done lots of research for this trip, and had a long list of places to go and things to see, to make the most of our journey.  Here we all are at  Hakatere Conservation Park at the foot of Mount Sommers.  The DOC hut was just the place for us to sit and eat our picnic lunch after a trip to Staverley to try some of their famous sausage rolls I had read about.  

Geoff C, Pauline, Eileen, Geoff T, Robin, Jenny, Derek and Dot

On our 2012 South Island trip

Many thanks to Trish for organising such a lovely day out, we had a great time indeed.

Caravan Club lunch at Denny's

 We organised a day out for our caravan club members, a lunch at Denny's in Porirua.  The interest was excellent, 20 attended, with just a few members unable to make it.  Denny's is a casual, family style restaurant, with quite an extensive menu, something for everyone's tastes.  Our group of 20 was spread out over three tables, and the restaurant was fairly full with other family groups too.  Our members are spread out geographically, some driving over the hill from the Wairarapa, some from the Horowhenua, Kapiti, and the Hutt Valley.

Every one was chatting away, so I thought it was a good time to take some photos.

Then serious business of checking out the the menus took place and we all made our choices.  It was roast pork for Robin and salmon for me.  It took a while for all the 20 meals to be delivered and the noise from our tables certainly decreased while we ate our lunches.

Our meals

After lunch a bit of table hopping took place as we caught up with the others.  A few ordered dessert, some had coffees and we were all happy little campers indeed.  Robin can never pass by a chocolate sundae.

Chocolate sundae for Robin

It was a lovely time out, both the food and the company were great, and everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves.  We are sure to have another caravan club lunch again soon.

Spring has Sprung

 Spring has sprung in our part of the world, and the clocks have gone forward one hour (Spring forward) for another season of daylight saving.  We don't mind daylight saving at all, although some people do.  I just think the lovely long Summer evenings are so delightful.  Spring however, in our country, can be rather tumultuous, so terribly changeable.   One day will be lovely - sunny and fine, followed  by a couple of windy, rainy days.  In fact, the weather in Dunedin, down in the South Island, had been terrible, flooding, land slips, trees down,  houses damaged and red stickered meaning the owners cannot return to their homes.  We had to contact our friends in Dunedin to make sure their house hadn't slipped down their hilly suburb, luckily they were fine.

Asparagus season has just started so we took a trip up the Lewis Farm just north of Levin to purchase some new season's asparagus.  It was a lovely warm sunny day and plenty of other people had the same idea.

At Lewis Farm's shop

We sat outside at the picnic tables with kids enjoying the playground equipment.  Robin was enjoying his huge real fruit ice-cream!

A big ice-cream for Robin

I preferred a coffee.  It was so nice relaxing in the sun shine.

On the way back home Robin insisted the little car needed a wash.  It's been a long time since I've been through one of these places.  Buying a ticket is all done on the phone these days.

Enter when the light turns green

Here it comes

Our lovely sunny Saturday was followed by a couple of rainy days, but that's how it is in Spring here.  We just have to make the most of each day, I feel.  I don't know about you, but our calendars are filling up fast with pre-Christmas caravan rallies and get togethers.  The next couple of months will be very busy indeed.

Final Days on Safari

The last stop on our safari was two nights at Takapau.  It was nice to be on  power again, as we were still experiencing cool weather.  

 Takapau is a pleasant camp, with power, water, recycling, laundry, a dump station, showers and toilets, and most important for our group in the chilly weather, somewhere to meet and gather.  About half  of our members opted for power sites this time.  

Staying at Takapau

We ate together in the hall on Saturday night, enjoying our local fish and chips.  Then there was a safari wrap up, starting with the telling of embarrassing stories.  I started the ball rolling when I related my tale of woe as a young Mum driving a car with L plates, remember those, plus two kids and two dogs.  I was traveling up the Wairarapa side of the Remutaka  Hill when all the traffic came to a standstill.  When the cars started off again I found it impossible to do the dreaded hill start and kept sliding back, getting closer and closer to the car behind me.  Finally, the driver came to me and offered to start my car and drove it to a flat pull off area.  I was mortified, and stayed put till all the traffic had passed by, before slowly driving home to Lower Hutt.  Other embarrassing tales followed, most of them long forgotten and buried in the subconscious, as it turned out.

During our safari we had a competition to count the number of one way bridges (there were many) we drove over.  Turnbulls and Archers came very close to the number I carefully counted and noted down, so they were declared the winners.  Bouquets and Brickbracks over our trip followed, with Helen getting a special mention for her solo caravan towing over very demanding roads, certainly not a task I would be capable of.

Sunday was a free day with people out visiting friends and family, or in our case, a little shopping and attending to the laundry.  The grand finale was dinner that evening at Sawyers Arms in Tikokino.

Sawyers Arm for a country dinner

Muddy gumboots at the door

The pub was quite full with patrons  and our group was seated in the dining room on a long table, which suited us fine.  Menus were studied, our choices were made, and generously heaped plates  arrived at the table.

 

Final dinner at Sawyers Arms

Everyone departed on Monday morning, and the gusty wind made towing a little difficult.  We stopped at NZ Natural Clothing shop at Norsewood  to make a couple of purchases, then carried on till we found somewhere to stop for lunch.

Shopping at Norsewood

Our idea was to have a break at Mangatainoko freedom camping area across the road from Tui  Brewery.  But the heavy rain put paid to that idea, the grass was rutted,  very soft and water was lying everywhere.  So we carefully drove out again, and parked in front of Tui Brewery on the main road.

There's the famous Tui Brewery tower

Lunch was easy, we had planned ahead and made some bacon sandwhiches before we broke camp, and they were very tasty indeed.  Maureen and Russell pulled up in their campervan behind us, and popped in to say hello, then we were off, on the final journey home.  Up and over the Pahiatua Track, and we were on the home stretch.  As much as I always enjoy our trips away, it's always good to get back home, safe and sound again.

Akitio and Porangahau

 There was rain and high winds overnight during our last night at Pongaroa, leaving me feeling a little uneasy with the stand of large trees towering over our caravan.  Luckily nothing untoward happened in the dead of night, and we awoke unscathed.  The weather hadn't improved at all, and Farmer Paul who looks after the camp, called around to collect the fees.  It was a 46km trip to our next stop, Akitio.  Along the way we noticed a lot of damage to roads, edges crumbling away and many cones in place after a bad storm.  Looks like there is a lot of repairs  still to be done.

There was major work being done on a hill side adjacent to the road in one area, seems there must have been a huge slip there and work was being done to stabilize the hill face.  There were two diggers hard at work, one down low and the other right up the top of the hill.  I guess all the recent rain would not be helping with the hill work.  The Stop-Go man wasn't standing out in the rain getting wet, instead he was tucked up nice and dry in the ute with his sign close to hand, and waved us on after getting radio instructions from the other end of the road works.

Hard at work in the rain

Driving over the long one-way bridge across the Akitio River we reached our destination.  

Crossing the Akitio River

 The area was originally dominated by two estates, the Marainanga Estate of 38,000 acres and the Akitio Estate of 50,000 acres.  The region has been partitioned and subdivided over the years, with the Akitio Estate now at 9,000 acres is still the largest in the area.  This is a sheep and beef farming district and the small town has a school, volunteer fire brigade, a motor camp and a freed camping area by the beach.

Welcome to Akitio

The weather was not kind to us during our stay here.  The beach was on side, and we were parked across the road from the volunteer fire brigade.  Luckily the siren did not go off during the middle of the night.

Akitio volunteer fire brigade

We found ourselves a site on the grassy freedom camping area, plenty of room here for our group.  Water, rubbish bins and a toilet block was available.

Camping at the beach

Dave and Deb joined us here in their campervan, as well as Stuart, who arrived to join his wife Helen.  We told Stuart how well Helen had been doing towing the van on her own, not something I personally would be able to do, I'm sure.  The beach, just out our door,  was covered in driftwood.  

Akitio beach

Morning tea sheltering between the vans, 

It was just one night here, so we packed up and set off again, to arrive at Te Paerahi Beach, Porangahau.  We backtracked part of the way, and then continued on, driving over multiple roadworks, the result of Cyclone Gabrielle which caused such a lot of damage about 18 months ago. 

 Along the way we stopped at the site of "The longest Placename in New Zealand".  There is a nice large area to pull off the road, and we discovered that self contained vans can stay stay for a night or two - we didn't know that.

That's a very long name indeed

The name translates to "The place where Tamatea, the man with the big knees, who slid, climbed and swallowed mountains, known as land eater, played his nose flute to his loved one".  The story goes that Tamatea was so grieved over the loss of his brother that he stayed at the battle site for some days.  Each morning he would sit on the hill and play a lament on his flute.

Te Paerahi Beach was another freedom camping area, not one we had stayed at before.  A toilet block was available, plus a drinking fountain, but no tap water available to top up the vans.  There were other vans there too, but still plenty of room for our seven vans.

The wide sandy beach was beautiful, and most of us strolled along it during our stay here.  There were no piles of driftwood cluttering up this beach, unlike the previous one we stayed at.

Te Paerahi Beach, Pongaroa

What's at Pongaroa?

 What's at Pongaroa?  For such a small place, there are quite a lot of interesting things there.  We left Alfredton and drove on to Pongaroa, a slowish drive with plenty of hills, up and down again, over and over again.  In the middle of the village is a sculpture to commemorate a famous son, Maurice Wilkins, who was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize together with his colleagues when they discovered the now familiar double helix of DNA.

Double Helix, discovered by Maurice Wilkins and colleagues

We arrived at the Pongaroa Domain, the name means many tree ferns, another pleasant camping area.

Russell and  Maureen couldn't decide the best place to park, so moved here, there and back again, getting their van stuck in the soft grass.  So it was Robin to the rescue with his handy strop to pull them out onto the hard again.

Getting ready

Robin to the rescue

Three of us opted for a power site and parked up the rise under some towering trees.  There were ewes and their little lambs just over the fence.  The others parked below us on the hard standing.

Three vans up the top

And the others parked on the edge of the road

We found out that Helen grew up in Pongaroa so knows the area well.  When having a coffee in the local cafe, she mentioned that she worked in the building as an after school job when it was a country store.  

Helen's first job here as a high school girl

The local pub, the Pongaroa Hotel,  has an interesting history, starting life as a BNZ bank.  The bank closed in 1936 and was used as a private house for 12 years.  It was then converted into a hotel, then a tavern, then back to a hotel again.  There are many interesting historic photos inside the building.

Pongaroa Hotel

We had Happy Hour in the pub, no doubt the locals wondered about us as we all walked in.  You know this is a rural area when you see the gum boots all lined up at the door.  We settled down in the dining room, checked out the menus and ordered our meals.    Generous country sized servings and very tasty indeed.

Helen, Russel and Maureen

John, Flo, Geoff, Eileen, Robin and Jenny

Robin, Jenny, Helen, Owen, John and Flo

The following day was clear but cold, and we packed a picnic lunch and the folding chairs, and headed off on an adventure.  Off we went to show our camping buddies the beautiful Waihi Falls, about a 45 minute drive from the camp.  The majority had not been there before.  Arriving at the car park we noticed a brand new toilet block, there was no sign of this when we did our reccie 6 weeks or so ago.

Brand new toilet block

The walk down to the falls was down a steep track, and I counted 105 steps.  Of course it was much easier going down than clambering back up.  We all walked at our own pace and the walking poles made us feel a little more secure.

Down the track

Waihi Falls were a sight to behold, roaring with sound as the water thundered 25m over the edge, sending light spray around to land on our faces.  Such a magnificent sight, so doubt the recent rain fall had made the flow even stronger than usual.

At beautiful Waihi Falls

Cameras were clicking as everyone posed for their selfies in front of the falls.  Then we all arranged ourselves for a group photo.

Geoff, two Helens in a row, Owen, Maureen, Jenny, Robin, Flo and John

Puffing and panting we made it back up the steps, and it was time for lunch.  There was a wooden shelter available with two large picnic tables and seats, but the wind was whistling right through.  Luckily there was a nice sheltered spot at the top of the walkway so we settled down there with our folding chairs and picnic lunches.  It was a lovely spot, sheltered by native trees, and we could hear the sounds of frogs croaking in the pond down the hill a little way.  So peaceful as we sat and chatted, eating our sandwhiches and making a hot drinks from our handy thermoses.

We took a different road heading back to camp, in fact it wasn't the road Robin intended to take at all, but we got there in the end.  We commented on the huge amount of pine trees all over the hills, new plantings, some half grown and pine forests maturing.  I'm always interested in rock formations as we drive along too, these looked interesting.

Rocks protruding from the hills

Finally back in Pongaroa, we stopped at the cafe/store for an ice-cream.  After our mammoth drive up and down all those hills, we felt we deserved an ice-cream to finish off our outing.

We can go every which way from Pongaroa