Paekakariki Holiday Park

“Where are you off to this time?”, our neighbour wanted to know, as we hooked up the caravan and trundled out of our village.  It’s another caravan club rally weekend.  Not too far away either, a short 57km drive down SH1 to Paekakariki Holiday Park.

Most had arrived before us, parked up and  tucked away in individual hedge lined sites.  Robin spotted one with a concrete pad, so decided that was the place for us.  With the ground so wet underfoot, stepping out on to a concrete pad will cut down on mud and grass being tracked inside.  Muffy jumped out of the car after the drive down, into the caravan, settled down on her rug and went straight to sleep.  It’s a leisurely life being a caravan cat.

 

Between the hedges at Paekakariki Holiday Park

We are parked behind the weekend Rally Captains, whose caravan was sporting the newly made porch awning.  These small awnings are so handy on wet days, giving overhead shelter as you enter and leave the caravan, and a space to put wet shoes.

New porch awning

And what’s this - another new caravan arriving.  Geoff and Eileen drove in with their new Southern Star.  Very nice it is too, and everyone was keen to check it out. 

New caravan in the club

Caravan club Fridays are usually fairly low key.  4zees of course in the afternoon, then we all gathered in the kitchen after the evening meal.  That’s when the jokes get told – have you heard the one about the Cat in the Hat lamenting his Golden Years?  With the wonder of the internet, jokes are everywhere, and people like to save up the best to relate on Friday evenings.  Then we had a short competition to write down as New Zealand place names we could think of starting with “W”.  Easy, I though, as I quickly wrote down Wellington, Whangarei, Wanganui, Warkworth and Weber.  Then I got stuck and thought about all the railway stations on the Hutt Valley line, that reminded me of a few more.   My rather sad total was 12, and I could have kicked myself when the winner read out all his 30 or so names.  Of course I knew them all, just couldn’t think of them under pressure.

We woke up to a drizzly Saturday morning, maybe the weather will clear as the weekend progresses.  It was Happy Birthday wishes to Geoff at morning tea as we all shared a piece of home made cake for his birthday.

Geoff passing around the birthday cake

Rally captains Selwyn and Kath have quite a busy Saturday programme for us – it all sounds a lot of fun.  Some of it involves trains, well, that will be interesting!