The End of an Era

 Things have been happening here.  Our Toyota HiLux, purchased in July as a tow vehicle, has been sold back to the car yard we bought it from.  This all happened quickly and painlessly, and was whisked away last week.  Luckily for me, friends Bill and Val came around to help me unload and clear out the back of the ute - this was full with items from our last caravan trip away.  

Goodbye car - Robin didn't enjoy driving this at all

Over the last couple of weeks I have been trudging  back and forth to the caravan emptying out drawers, cupboards, pantry, wardrobes.  There was so much stuff tucked away!   I had help from Owen when it came to the lockers and all the different tools they contained.  He advised what must remain with the van and what could go.  This morning Owen and Helen came back up, helped me with the final cleaning, and after lunch towed the van to a sales yard for me.  I really couldn't have managed without their help.  The van will be sold on behalf, and hopefully the Summer holidays will be an ideal time to sell.

Goodbye, Romany Rambler

Our custom made caravan steps will be looking for a new home.  These were commissioned to make it easier to climb into the van, with my sore back and his knee replacements.

Caravan steps

So it really is the end of an era with caravanning.  We purchased our first caravan not long after we were married, and have enjoyed traveling the length and breadth of New Zealand.  Sadly, we never made it over the Stewart Island.  Once reaching retirement age, our trips have got longer, and we had booked the InterIslander for another long trip down south in January - not happening now, of course.  Gemma, and Muffy before her, became much traveled caravan cats.  

Spring has Sprung

 Spring has sprung in our part of the world, and the clocks have gone forward one hour (Spring forward) for another season of daylight saving.  We don't mind daylight saving at all, although some people do.  I just think the lovely long Summer evenings are so delightful.  Spring however, in our country, can be rather tumultuous, so terribly changeable.   One day will be lovely - sunny and fine, followed  by a couple of windy, rainy days.  In fact, the weather in Dunedin, down in the South Island, had been terrible, flooding, land slips, trees down,  houses damaged and red stickered meaning the owners cannot return to their homes.  We had to contact our friends in Dunedin to make sure their house hadn't slipped down their hilly suburb, luckily they were fine.

Asparagus season has just started so we took a trip up the Lewis Farm just north of Levin to purchase some new season's asparagus.  It was a lovely warm sunny day and plenty of other people had the same idea.

At Lewis Farm's shop

We sat outside at the picnic tables with kids enjoying the playground equipment.  Robin was enjoying his huge real fruit ice-cream!

A big ice-cream for Robin

I preferred a coffee.  It was so nice relaxing in the sun shine.

On the way back home Robin insisted the little car needed a wash.  It's been a long time since I've been through one of these places.  Buying a ticket is all done on the phone these days.

Enter when the light turns green

Here it comes

Our lovely sunny Saturday was followed by a couple of rainy days, but that's how it is in Spring here.  We just have to make the most of each day, I feel.  I don't know about you, but our calendars are filling up fast with pre-Christmas caravan rallies and get togethers.  The next couple of months will be very busy indeed.

Weekend in the Wairarapa

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.

We needed help

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

Lunch with Friends

 It was time for our regular get together with our Super Leisure Group friends.  We travelled down to the Hutt Valley along the Transmission Gully motorway coming into some fog at the top.

Transmission Gully

With time to spare we stopped off at Avalon Park for a look around.  It's been ages since we had been here, and although the day was a bit damp, there were plenty of family groups  out and about.

I walked over the foot bridge to see what I could find.  Plenty of ducks in the small lakes hovering around waiting.  Although there were signs up asking people not to feed the ducks, some people were.  Feeding water fowl bread is dangerous to their health and can give them a condition called Angel Wings which prevents them from  being able to fly.  I came across a monster dinosaur in the lake, roaring his head off!

Dinosaur on the lake

We met up with Helen and Calvin for lunch at Boulcott Golf Club Cafe.  This is always a busy place, with finding a car park a bit of a mission.  And the cafe is always very popular.  It was Helen's birthday, so she needed a balloon to celebrate.

Calvin and Helen

Jenny and Robin

After an enjoyable lunch, and plenty of chatter, we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.  We had to take our car to get a little extra work done locally, so that took a wee while.  After that we  went to check up on our SLG friend Trish.  This lunch was originally her outing, but sadly she ended up in hospital for a few days.  So we popped over to the Hutt Hospital to see how she was getting along.  Trish was looking good, glad of our visit, and has since been discharged.

It was time to head home, enjoying listening to all the "Songs we Love" from our favourite radio station Magic.  And......we remembered each and every one!

Driving home, listening to music from our era

That was a long day

We set off on a reccie trip on Saturday to make plans for the upcoming Safari trip we are organising  for the caravan club.   Packing up our picnic lunch we  set off bright and early at 8.00am, the morning just seemed to be waking up. 

Ready for our adventure

It was a bit misty driving over the Pahiatua Track, with the first few wind turbines shrouded in mist, then it cleared as we drove down from the top.  

It's a fairly long drive to the Wairarapa from home, taking us two hours.  Guess we should have left home a little earlier.  First stop was at Henley Lake for a comfort stop and we noticed plenty of freedom campers in residence.  Lots of water laying about on the ground too, no doubt the resident ducks and geese will enjoy splashing about in all those puddles.

Henley Lake

Then we set off on our reccie trip to check out where we would stay on the safari, the cost of camps we were interested in, the milage we might do on any given day, and any attractions in the area.  We drove here, there and everywhere

We drove up and down hills

Saw plenty of sheep

Showers followed us around, then we saw several rainbows keeping us company as we drove along.  

Yet another rainbow

There were road works galore, with lots of damage we noticed to various areas of the edge of the roadway falling away.  There were road cones everywhere and heavy machines parked on the side of the roads.  I think this area is still in recovery mode from a large storm which caused a lot of damage.

Yet more road works

Our picnic lunch was eaten looking out at a very attractive beach watching the small waves roll in.  And what's this, a seal was resting up by one of the rubbish bins.  Only a young one I think, and I carefully took his photo keeping my distance.

Our stop for lunch

Seal resting on the grass

We drove around some more, checking off the places on our list.  And passed by this massive area of work done - it looks like there was quite a landslide here at one stage.

Lots of remedial work done here

It was time to head home and by 5.30pm it was getting dark.  So it was quite a slow careful trip retracing our steps, watching out for the road cones and pot holes along unfamiliar roads in the pitch black.  No street lighting out here in the wop wops!  Eventually we made it over the Saddle Road and stopped at Dannevirke for a meal at Subway.

Dinner for two at Subway, Dannevirke

We still had a way to go and the car told us that it was running short of fuel and we wouldn't have quite enough to get back home.  That wouldn't do so we topped up and continued on our homewards journey.  Finally making it back home nearly 9 hours after starting out, and travelling 610kms.  It had been quite a day!