Giant Sun sighted in Greytown

Another rally weekend rolled around, the caravan was packed and hooked on, Muffy stowed safely away on the back seat of the car, and we were off.  First stop was at the petrol station to check the tyres.  Robin likes to make sure both the caravan and car tyres are correctly inflated before we take a trip.  We were travelling over the steep Rimutaka Hill to Greytown.

Checking the tyres

Greytown is a very pretty town in the Wairarapa, with many trendy shops and cafes.   We drove through the handsome stone Memorial Gates topped with a wrought iron archway, and along a tree lined driveway into the camp at the rear of the park.

Soldiers Memorial Gate at Greytown Park

The Motor Camp was quite full with a lot of people staying the weekend to enjoy the Balloon Festival. (We had previously seen this several times so it was not on our agenda for the weekend.) The camp is very reasonably priced at $20 per night, and four caravans from our club enjoyed warm sunny weekend weather.  Lots of family groups in tents were dotted about the camp, and youngsters were riding their trikes around the grass.  We were horrified to discover a wasp nest under a tree root very close to the camp facilities so made sure both the Camp Manager and the young parents were aware of the danger.

Our group at Greytown Motor Camp

The Motor Camp is ideally situated at only a short walk from town, or an even shorter drive, if a bit of shopping or a cafe fix is required.  We needed to purchase a few items and I noticed something unusual in the Supermarket car park.  It is not often you find a sheep being taken to town and parked up in the shoppers car park.

The sheep out shopping

There was quite a bit of excitement on Sunday morning and Elaine came running over to tell us some news.  She banged on the door.  “Are you dressed yet?”, she wanted to know, “come and have a look at this.” We rushed outside to have a look.  As a finale to the balloon weekend, some of the balloonists were out enjoying the calm early morning conditions.  A giant sun balloon was peeping over the trees.

Here comes the sun

The little children were thrilled to see the sun with his cheeky face looking down at them.  More balloons soon followed the sun and the children were pointing, the cameras were snapping, and we all enjoyed this unexpected morning show.

Our weekend in Greytown came to a close, but it wasn’t over yet.  Geoff had arranged to take a day’s leave on Monday so  suggested an extra night away.  Everyone thought that was a great idea - but the question was, where shall we go?