Easter Saturday - Pancakes for Breakfast

With the promise of a pancake breakfast, most of the campers were up bright and early on Saturday morning.  Blokes and barbeques were everywhere.  Bacon was sizzling away, pancakes were being poured on to the hot plates, bananas were sliced in half, and maple syrup was waiting.  The smell of cooking bacon was delicious indeed.

Cooking up a storm

We had taken plates and cutlery into the hall, and waited for the call for breakfast.  The hall was filling up fast.

 

Flipping those pancakes

The call “Come and get it”, or words to that effect soon had us queuing up to collect our tasty breakfast.  Which was soon demolished.  Then the call went out for seconds, and honestly, we just couldn’t help ourselves.  Many thanks to the Gisborne club for organizing the breakfast.

Happy campers eating their pancake breakfasts

After lunch we took a walk up town for a couple of necessities.  Foxton is one of those towns decorated with murals, which is a great way to see the history of the area.  This particular mural shows the engine “Palmerston”, built especially for the Foxton line.  The engine carried both passengers and freight,  depicted here on the mural travelling through the main street of Foxton, about 1875.

The engine Palmerston on the Foxton Line

The Saturday evening entertainment was provided by Ian Farmer, of Feilding.  He kept our toes tapping as he played the sort of songs that we all remembered from our young days, and we sung along with gusto.

Entertainer Ian Farmer

And took to the dance floor, sitting down again when the creaky knees started complaining.  Enthusiastic dancers joined in the Gay Gordons, and the Chicken Dance while we preferred the more romantic trips around the dance floor.

On the dance floor

It was a great night, as we reminisced about dancing the night away in our teen years.  In the early days before our boyfriends had cars, we traveled by bus and train to Saturday nights, to meet up and get our dancing fix.  Those were the days!

National Rally at Foxton

That nasty Cyclone Cook travelled down the country, wrecking havoc here and there, and fortunately for us,  veered away slightly from our area before travelling South.  A massive clean-up is underway in the North Island after Cyclone Cook carved a destructive swathe across eastern regions overnight. Heavy rain and strong wind watches remain in force for southern regions as the cyclone unleashes its final sting before moving away from the country tonight.  Originally touted as “comparable to the Wahine storm” everyone  was very worried indeed. The sinking of the Lyttelton–Wellington ferry Wahine on 10th April 1968 was New Zealand's worst modern maritime disaster, with the loss of over 50 people.

With Cook out of the way, the attendees at the rally at Foxton breathed a collective sigh of relief and settled down to enjoy themselves.  About 40 vans were in attendance, some travelling from Auckland, Gisborne, and Hawkes Bay, with plenty from the local region.

Some of the vans parked at Manawatu College

There were a few dogs along for the weekend, and one couple along their beloved birds, snapped outside enjoying the sunshine.

Caravanning is for the birds!

The Opening Ceremony took place on Friday afternoon, and the banner holders were led into the hall behind a piper.  There is nothing like bagpipes to get the pulse racing, I always feel.

Here come the banner holders

The 24th CCNZ National Rally was officially opened.

Presentations were then made.  Graham and Heather from the Wairarapa Club were presented with their 200th Rally awards.

Graham and Heather receive their 200th awards

Then Graham and Karen from the Palmerston North club received their 400th Rally awards.  Many congratulations to both couples.

Graham and Karen receiving their 400th awards

Derek then took the floor and announced that he was in charge of “bog rolls” over the weekend.  He then went on to explain that to keep costs down we would be allowed one sheet at a time, and went on to carefully explain exactly how we could make this allocation do the job.

Derek explaining toilet etiquette, one sheet at a time

Club photos then took place.  We took some photos for other clubs and then they returned the favour for us.  Here we are, some of us in our orange outfits.

Heretaunga caravan club members at the rally

There were a few quizzes held in the evening get-together to test our brains.  Sadly our table didn’t have all the answers, but then, we didn’t get the lowest score either.  Not like that other group in the hall - how embarrassing to have to admit to that!  The beauty of these rallies is the opportunity to meet up again up with people we hadn’t seen for a while, and catch up with all their news.