Our Caravan Club weekend got off to a shaky start. We were driving along, the first time towing in our "new to us" Hilux and Robin discovered the brake controller wasn't working. Oh dear, that didn't bode well, with our trip taking us over the Remutaka Hill. A phone call was made to the mobile auto-electrician who had recently done work on the car, and he arranged to meet us at Park and Ride carpark at Manor Park. After an hour the wiring was fixed and we were good to go, thanks Paul for coming to our rescue.
So off we went, through Upper Hutt, up the Kaitoke Hill, then climbing up and over the Remutaka Hill. Once in the Wairarapa, it wasn't too long until we arrived at Tauherenikau Caravan Park. Tauherenikau means "the house made of nikau palm fronds".
Other members soon joined us and once settled, we enjoyed lunch, followed by 4zees out side in the lovely Wairarapa sunshine.
Here are the first few arrivals
Luckily we had the use of a hall, and we met there in the evening for a quiz. Murray was the winner, he knew many more answers than the rest of us. Next was "The Great Reveal", and we did wonder what that would entail. As it turned out, members were called upon to talk about an embarrassing caravanning situation, and there were plenty of them. Robin started off the tales, relating how he was helping put a visitor's van on a site, when the grab handle on the back of the van he was holding came off in his hand! Not a great welcome to a prospective new member at all.
On Saturday evening most off us drove through to Greytown to check out the Festival of Christmas light show and food stall. We found a car park and had quite a long walk to get to the town centre, which was closed off to traffic. The place was humming, full of people with kids in pushchairs and older ones everywhere, dogs on leads, and lots of oldies like us. The first thing we saw on arrival was a row of burners used in hot air balloons. Whoosh, whoosh, they went, flames shooting upwards. Plenty of people were taking videos and photos, and just standing around watching it all happen.
We wandered around with the crowds and checked out some of the food stalls. Mmm, profititeroleseroles, that sounds nice. So we shared a few of these dainty little cream filled balls covered in chocolate, while sitting on a very low wooden structure. The next food stall was selling fried oysters, but at $78 a dozen, we passed them by. I love fried oysters but certainly not at that price.
Tiny profiteroles
Nibbling away, we watched as mid winter themed images were played across one of the lovely old buildings. Kids walked by with glow sticks, excitedly exclaiming at all that was going one. Gingerly getting up from our very low seating, we wandered down another ally and founf an interesting Japanese food truck. This was new to us so we ordered, and enjoyed, some fried dumplings and Japanses fried bread. The fried bread was rather like a toasted sandwhich containing very tasty curry meat filling. Who would know that curry was a Japanese thing?
Let's try Japanese
We came across a huge Christmas tree, such a pretty sight. Nothing nicer than Christmas in July celebrations. We were getting weary by tghis stage, and my back was protesting, so we wandered back through the throngs of people. I'm sure more and more were arriving as it got darker.
The weather wasn't quite so nice on Sunday, the sky had clouded over and the wind had got up so we were pleased to have the hall available for morning tea. Everyone said their goodbyes and started to pack op and head home. Not us though, we had decided to spend an extra night in the Wairarapa and check out the newish Masterton NZMCA Park.
The members in the area have done a wonderful lot of planting NZ native trees around the perimeter, these will slowly grow and mature, provide shelter and encourage native birds to come and visit too. This is a large roomy area with water available, rubbish bins, and a dump station. I walked over to the sign in shed and checked out the books available. I left some of mine behind which I had finished and found a couple by authors I rather like. There are only a few other campers so there is plenty of room for us. And 50 other vans too, if they decide to come.
Spending the night at Masterton
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