Ready and Waiting for Father Christmas

Owning a caravan is a bit like always being on holiday, we think.  We’ve been living in our caravan for the last few weeks at our friends property in rural Otaki, while we wait for our new home to be built.  Then we hitched up and left on Saturday morning for our Christmas/New Year holiday break.  (What do we need a break for, you may well ask, since we are now a pair of happily retired baby-boomers).  Planning the trip from Otaki to the Wairarapa put us in a bit of a dilemma.  Would it be quicker to travel north and drive across the Pahiatua Track, or backtrack south through Kapiti, over the Haywards Hill, then the Rimutaka Hill?  Robin punched the routes into his handy Garmin GPS and the answer was – go south. 

The upper reaches of the Rimutaka Hill was swathed in mist and looked very “other worldly”.  We wondered if a Hobbit or two would be appearing, chased perhaps by one of those nasty Orks, but we only things we saw were cars spookily appearing out of the mist.

Conditions on the Rimutaka Hill

Driving back down the hill, we were soon bathed in the Wairarapa sunshine, and were warmly welcomed into Carterton Holiday Park by Pete and Di.  There has been a new office extension and deck added to the managers house since our last visit, so much more roomy for customers.

  

New camp office

With the caravan parked on site, I did my best to help Robin with the job of erecting the awning.  It was hard work in the hot muggy conditions, I can tell you, especially when Robin had the job of banging in the pegs.   The awning will give us some extra storage space for all those extras we have brought away with us.  But modern camping doesn’t end there, does it?  Mustn’t forget to set up the satellite dish for the TV. 

On site at Carterton

We had another job to do today – to erect our gazebo which will give us some much needed shade.  This job is much easier with several people helping, but we made do with just the pair of us. The whole thing unfolds like a large brolly.  We each  grabbed a corner, and walked out a little, moved around to take another portion, and repeat again and again.

Unfolding the gazebo

Job completed

Now we are all ready and looking forward to our caravan friends who will be arriving over the next day or two to keep us company.  And that be-whiskered jolly fat fellow in red should be putting in an appearance very soon too – wonder if he will have a present or two for us?  We will just have to wait and see, won’t we.