Foxton Rally

With a bare three hours sleep from our late night ferry trip, it was time to get up and going.  We crept into Plimmerton NZMCA Park at the ungodly hour of 4.00am, awake at 7.00am, time for breakfast and then hook up and await our turn at the onsite dump station. Driving up the coast road we saw Kapiti Island, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen my favourite island off the Kapiti Coast.

Kapiti Island

We were so pleased we had arrived back in time to attend the funeral of our friend and Caravan Club member Selwyn, and support Cath on this sad day.  The funeral was held at Our Lady of Kapiti Church and Robin received permission to park our car and caravan on the lawn in front of the adjacent school, out of the way from the car parking area.  Val gave an eulogy on behalf of HCC and our club members joined the Kapiti E Bike Club to form a Guard of Honour.

Farewell to Selwyn

After the funeral we traveled up to Foxton NZMCA Park, one day early for our caravan club rally.  This was our first time driving along the new Peka Peka to Otaki Expressway.

Early bird at the Foxton Rally

The next morning, Friday, we decided to move along to another area right down the end of the camp, which looked big enough to accommodate the club members attending.  One by one they rolled in and we had a good chat with everyone. Rally Fridays often means fish and chip for tea, and Pat drove Geoff and Robin to get take-away meals.  It was another early night for us, trying to catch up on our beauty sleep after a disrupted couple of days.

We heard race horses thundering around the track, bright and early on Saturday morning.  Morning Tea rolled around.  Club members Russell and Maureen celebrate birthdays a mere few days apart, so brought along a home made fruit cake to share with us all.  Thanks so much, it was delicious.

Happy Birthday to Russell and Maureen

The weather really didn’t know what to do, and the rain came and went during the day, not really pouring down, but enough to make it’s presence felt.  Luckily the grounds didn’t end up with puddles everywhere, the rain soaked away quite easily.  On Saturday night we were put into three teams, visited our host van, and battled with Murray’s quiz.  I always say a quiz is easy of you know the answers, and we did wonder where Murray had dredged these questions from.  Never mind, we did our best. 

Sadly, our best wasn’t good enough, as we found out the following day at morning tea when the answers were given.    The other two teams came first equal, meaning our team came last. But we all got a chocolate or two from Murray and Sue, the rally family for the weekend.

Sunday Morning Tea

After being on our South Island Odyssey for the last ten weeks or so, it was great to meet up with our caravan club buddies again.  There was plenty of catching up to do.

Trip to Carterton

The Wairarapa towns are not too far away over the Ranges as the crow flies, but where we live it’s quite a different story going by road.  We have a choice of heading north then crossing over the Tararua Ranges or traveling south and driving over the Rimutaka Hill – a two hour trip whatever choice we make.  Driving over on Friday we opted to go north, up and over the Pahiatua Track.

New sign at the top of the hill

It was a little misty at the top of the hill and we spotted some of the new wind turbines through the mist.  This project has been in the news lately as things have not been going to plan.  Power generator Mercury has run into problems to get its turbine blades up the hill to the Turitea Wind Farm.  The 99 12-tonne, 55-metre-long blades stored in Palmerston North were due to start being transported to the top of the Tararua Range in September.  But a new track being built to bypass a steep, tight S-bend on the Pahīatua Track has slipped and failed, forcing turbine suppliers Vestas to look for another way up.

The schedule for completing the 60-turbine, $465 million wind farm had already been challenged by the Covid-19 lockdown, when work on turbine tower foundations and transmission line preparations stalled.  The current goal is to have the 33-turbine first stage of what will be New Zealand’s largest wind farm completed in April to July 2021 and the second, southern stage by Christmas 2021.  Part of the challenge of getting the turbine blades up the hill was that they were 10m longer than envisaged 10 years ago.  We saw on the TV news that the blades are being transported at night, standing up at quite an angle, what a job that must be.

Goodness, that’s a long load

Once over the ranges, we have to travel south into the Wairarapa, and our first stop was at Eketahuna at the rather royally decorated public loos.  What is the Beefeater doing with those corgis in tow?  Maybe the Queen had a comfort stop here some time ago and this is the royal acknowledgement of her visit.

Seen at Eketahuna

Our next stop was at Pukaha National Wildlife Centre at Mt Bruce for lunch.  We admired a lovely carving of the now extinct Huia in the café.  Their beautiful tail feathers were much prized by the Maori people who wore them in their hair.  It is interesting to note that the female huia has a much longer beak than the male.

Pukaha National Wildlife

Just a week ago there was a ceremony here when  the 942 hectares of  Pūkaha Forest, home to native birds and conservation work  in northern Wairarapa has been gifted to the nation by Rangitane “for everyone to enjoy”. The Rangitane people had received the Pukaha Forest in its Treaty Settlement in 2017 but has now officially gifted it to New Zealand.  Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has described it as an "extraordinary act of generosity" by the iwi, and she said  it was a privilege to accept the gift.

Gifting of Pukaha Forest

Henley Lake at Masterton was our next stop, such a lovely peaceful place.  Many species of water fowl make their home here, including both black and white swans.  We whiled away a little time soaking up the atmosphere.  The drive into the park was through a a line of beautiful trees sporting their Autumn colours.

Henley Lake

Our trip to Carterton was touched with sadness, we had travelled here to attend the funeral of of SLG friend Les.  Les and his late wife Anne had been much loved members of our Super Leisure Group and we had enjoyed their company at many of our monthly outings.  RIP Les, you and Anne are now together again.

Farewell to Lewis

It is always sad farewelling a friend.  We first met Lewis about 35 years ago, and wondered just who this larger than life fellow with the softy spoken Canadian accent was.  Until we got to know him a little better, we certainly struggled with that accent.  Yes, he was speaking English, but that accent sounded a little strange to our Kiwi ears.  And heaven help anyone who mistook his voice for that of an American.  It must have been just as insulting for him as it would be for us Kiwis to be mistaken for an Aussie!

Robin and I married about this time, and Lewis and our friend Shirley tied the knot a year or so later.  One of our enduring memories of him happened in the mid 80s when we came up with the grand plan of walking the Milford Track, billed as the “Greatest walk in the World”.  The four of us plus another friend Jim got into training, brought ourselves wet weather gear and for those who didn’t already own them, tramping boots and a small pack.  Robin and I purchased a “swannie” jacket each, and I diligently knitted us woolly hats.   The five of us were all set for our great adventure.  The Milford Track would take us 5 days to transverse 54km of  through the heart of Fiordland National Park to Milford Sound, staying at serviced huts along the way

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To save a little money, we agreed to travel down in Lewis’s van.  There we were, five of us seated on rather hard seats in an uncomfortable van, while we drove the length of the South Island.  Lewis was quite a heavy smoker at the time, and we endured our travel surrounded by clouds of cigarette smoke.  We finally made it to Te Anau where we were briefed on what to expect on our 5 days tramping, and we met the rest of our party of 40.  What a mixed bunch we were, amongst others there was a young honeymoon couple from Korea, a big headed Kiwi back from the States where he was a grid-iron star, a middle aged American vegetarian couple, and the Dennis family from Auckland, and our group of five.  This family was the bane of Lewis’s life on our tramp.  He described the the two daughters as “drop dead gorgeous”, as was their mum, and every morning at breakfast they appeared beautifully made up, with not a hair out of place.  After a hard day out on the track they looked just the same – guess they arrived earlier at the hut before most, had a quick shower and a change of clothes, dried their hair and replaced their make up.  How did they do it each day, we all wondered.  Lewis was a fit outdoorsy type of bloke, and each morning he set off with Shirley, ready to tackle the day’s walk.  We all  arrived at each hut each evening dripping wet, boots and legs covered in mud after a hard day walking across streams and trudging up and down hills, tired but happy we were coping with the trip.

The sleeping arrangements were segregated dormitories, men in one and women in the other, not much fun for the honeymoon couple at all.  The gorgeous Mum wandered into the men’s dormitory one morning to say hello to her hubby clad only in her sheer nighty – poor Lewis just about had an apoplexy!  Our three blokes had packed a bottle of liquor each in their packs, and enjoyed several tipples each night in the dining room before collapsing in bed to sleep.  After five days we made it to the end of the track, Sandfly Point, to wait for a boat to take us to Milford Sound.  Sandfly Point was aptly named, the pesky little critters surrounded us, biting like crazy.  We had made it – what a sense of accomplishment!  Not like that American vegetarian couple, they never had the stamina to complete the journey and had to be taken by jet boat down the river to the end of the walk.

After the tramp we climbed into Lewis’s van again and headed travelled up the West Coast, stopping along the way at motels.  To save costs we decided to share a family unit and us two couples took turns sleeping in the master bedroom.  One memorable night we arrived at Pine Grove Motels, miles from any settlement and tucked away in the middle of nowhere.  It was Shirley and Lewis’s turn for the big bedroom and they were both rather surprised to find that the room came complete with a full length mirror positioned on the ceiling over the bed!  Lewis was quizzed in the morning about this extra in the bedroom and all he would admit to was that “it wasn’t a pretty sight!”

Over the years we have had many a meal and outing together, celebrating birthdays and anniversaries together.  Lewis was a big man both in stature and personality, and we were privileged to have shared part of his life.  Although he led his life to the full, his innings were cut short, and our lives are the poorer with his passing.  Lewis, rest in peace.

 

RIP Geoff

Today we farewelled our friend and caravan buddy Geoff C.  The funeral was sad, and funny too, remembering amusing incidents,  as people often do at funerals these days.  Geoff was remembered as “Mr Gadget”, particularly  for his propensity for anything new in the electronic line.  Geoff and Pauline’s caravan sported many a new gadget over the years, such as the robotic looking self seeking TV aerial to the rear view camera on the van. And Geoff and Robin were both founder members of the “Red Generator Club”.  Only those caravanners with the manly red Honda generator could join – anyone with one of those pansy yellow coloured ones were certainly not eligible.  Many a phone call from Geoff started with a request to speak to the President of the Red Generator Club.

Our 2012 South Island Odyssey trip started off with a conversation between us and Geoff and Pauline.  They were so keen to join us, and we spent quite some time planning where we would like to go and what we wanted to do.  We were eventually joined by two other couples and our journey began with a cruise over Cook Strait on the Kaitaki in mid February 2012.

Starting off on our South Island Odyssey trip

Geoff was quite a train buff, as we both are too, and we planned the start of our holiday to coincide with the timetable of the vintage Weka Pass Railway which ran from Waikari to Glenmark and return.  The Plains Vintage Railway and Historical Museum at Tinwald had a steam train running and Geoff managed to talk the engine driver into letting him climb aboard for a photo opportunity.  And we all had such a fun time down riding the rails on the Kingston Flier that we took part in our very own Crunchie Bar photo shoot.  (Who can remember that famous Crunchie Bar advertisement filmed on board the Kingston Flier all those years ago?)

On board the Kingston Flier

Geoff had spent some of his working life in the Air Force, so a visit to the Air Force Museum at Wigram was a trip down memory lane for him.  He had arranged a special “behind the Scenes” tour for us all, which was very much appreciated.

Air Force Museum at Wigram

One morning Geoff decided to whip up a batch of sultana scones for us all.  These were made on top of the gas hot plate, cooked to perfection in his handy “Bessemer” cast aluminium cookware, another one of his gadgets. It was excellent for making pizzas too, we can vouch for that.

Scones for morning tea

We have many happy memories of the time spent in the company of both Geoff and Pauline.

Rest in peace Geoff, your long fight is now over and all the pain has now stopped. We will sure miss you. We enjoyed your company on our trip around the South Island in 2012. We saw some great sights and stayed in some awesome places, many many memories. Who can forget some of the times trying to decide the next place to visit, some were fraught but most were hilarious. You will be sadly missed as you are one or life's all time good guys and a great character.

We had many a chat in the last two years since your diagnosis and to me you always put on a brave face but we all knew the battle you were fighting, but those chats will stay with me forever. You are a sad sad loss REST IN PEACE my friend - Robin

Goodbye, mate

We said farewell to our friend Graeme today, one of our good friends from the Caravan Club. The service started with the Elvis song, “Huka, huka, burning love”, known affectionately as “Graeme’s Song”, as he loved to join in the chorus. Graeme and Kathryn came to their first caravan rally way back in January 1999, at the Hydrabad Motor Camp. We were put into a team with the newcomers and our task was to construct a race horse out of driftwood gathered from the beach. In the evening the teams brought their horses along to take part in a race meeting. Our horse, aptly named Phar Lap, did reasonably well for a beginner. Also at this rally Graeme and Kathryn were introduced to an all involved water gun fight. At a recent rally everyone was asked to recall something memorable about caravanning. Graeme commented that their first rally was certainly memorable and full of fun. He felt right at home with people who enjoyed themselves doing silly things.

He loved getting away to rallies, and had a dry sense of humour which came to the fore when they were rally captains a few months ago. We were all asked to bring a small potatoe along, goodness knows why! Graeme and Kathryn set up a trio of gnomes on a table, handed us all a Spud Gun, and then the great Gnome Shoot began. Pellets of potatoes flew through the air, with some actually making contact with the gnomes.

There are two types of blokes in the caravan club, the Ford lovers and the ones who can’t live without their Holden's. It is not unusual for one side to make disparaging remarks against the other’s choice of vehicle, and send e-mail jokes to one another. Graeme was a Holden man through and through and his Holden Commadore was his pride and joy. It made an excellent tow car, and over the years has towed his caravan many thousands of kms attending rallies and travelling throughout New Zealand.

We enjoyed his company over the years, and it was an honour to know him. He left is much too soon. Surely he will be looking down at us from the happy camping ground in the sky, no doubt thinking those words from a John Williamson song, “Look at those old farts in the caravan park”.