Rainy and Cold

 It rained off and on all night at Turangi, and didn't look much better in the morning.  Not entirely unexpected as the long Labour Weekend often has cold and wet conditions.  Our Spring weather can be very fickle indeed.

It's wet out there again

I'm always a little nervous driving along the Desert Road, especially on a holiday weekend.  The traffic was quite heavy, as expected, and Robin did his best to let the faster traffic go by.  The scenery changes dramatically, from sub alpine trees, to miles of tussock covered land which is used for military training, and then changes again to rolling farmland at the southern end. The rain and low clouds followed us, obscuring my view of Mt Ruapehu.

Very low clouds indeed

It was time to stop and catch our breath at Waiouru.  Robin attended to the fuel requirements while I went over to the coffee cart.  I had an interesting chat with the owner and another customer inside when I mentioned we were on our way home to Levin.  Both of these ladies had lived there in the past. 

Time for coffee at Waiouru

The bad weather cleared and our final stop on this trip was the Marton NZMCA Park.  Yes, we could have traveled all the way home, but a little while after settling in, the heavy rain came down again, and lasted overnight.  This is a handy little camp, one of the few with toilets available.  This harks back to the days when this property was a Council administered motor camp.  We can remember coming to the camp years ago with the caravan club.

Overnighting at Marton

Robin had decided to leave the car hooked up to the caravan overnight.  But the camp custodian came and advised us and the owners of the adjacent van to unhitch the car and park it across the way.  Although both the caravan and car fitted in the long sites, it seems that there had been instances of late arrivals damaging the cars as they drove in.  And that is also why bollards had been placed around the meeting room, to stop vehicles running into it, as had happened several times.  Unbelievable!

Bollards added to protect the building

Just for a change, we woke up to a fine and sunny morning.  A nice surprise, after all the rain we had encountered lately.  It was a short 70km trip home the next morning, always good to arrive home safe and sound and to unpack in fine weather.

Our trip north was necessary for caravan maintenance, the annual service.  And the awning needed repair too, although not ripped, a little of the stitching was coming undone.  That couldn't be left as it would have only got worse.   We were pleased with how this job was done too, and the very friendly and helpful workers at Cvana.  But...... the fridge in the caravan had been playing up all trip, so now that needs looking at.    All in all, it was a very sucessful trip, and we towed the van 1300km while we were away.