The Wind Never Stops

Camping by the beach at Himitangi may well sound like fun, but believe us, that wind just never stopped blowing.  That pesky wind was so cold, we never got to sit outside at all over the weekend.  Luckily there was a large recreation room available for us to use.  The camp has been undergoing an upgrading programme over the last couple of years, and is now completed with the addition of a new laundry block and two new disabled showers and toilets.  This camp is always very well run, and we certainly enjoy our weekends here.  There is a large collection of various metal art pieces attached to the fences, ranging from fish sculptures to an assortment of jandals

Fish - catch of the day

Sunday night was BBQ night, and the steak, sausages, hash browns  and pork chops sizzled away. 

Geoff and Robin in charge of the BBQ

We all ate our meal together in the recreation  room.  Margaret the manager had kindly presented our club with two bottles of South African wine to share, which was much appreciated.

   Compliments of the camp

Most of our caravan club buddies packed up and headed for home on Monday morning, all except us and Don and Pamela who were staying an extra night.  We were joined by friends Geoff and Pauline Cole, who were part of our “South Island Odyssey” group earlier in the year

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Three of us staying an extra night

The rest of the camp had emptied out considerably too.  The permanent awnings were shut up tight, with dune buggies and bikes safely locked away till next time.  The weekenders loaded up their kids and dogs and headed back to suburbia, leaving us three in a very quiet camp indeed.   We spent the afternoon together in the rec room, safely away from that awful wind.  Just getting in and out of the caravan door was a challenge, as the force of the wind almost ripped the door off the hinges!

It must have been “Murphy’s Law” because, would would you believe it, we woke on Tuesday morning to silence.  No wind whatsoever.  Hard to believe after what we had put up with over the weekend.  Packing up, we said our goodbyes, and started for home, stopping off in Levin to top up the fuel again.  We were rather dwarfed at the Truck Stop by the large truck with it’s load of new cars. 

Fill up time again

Rural life is never far away as just over the back fence we saw some young calves with their mothers.  You wouldn’t think the main road was so close to this rural scene.

Young calves in town

We had a couple of things to attend to on our journey home, finally arriving in the late afternoon. Windy or not, it was still a great weekend away.