Catching up in Napier

Well we've been parked up here beside my parents place in Napier for the last two weeks & it looks like it'll be another week before we have finished with all we have wanted to do. Not only that but at this stage we can't book our ferry trip across the Strait as all bookings have been suspended while the problem is sorted with one of the ferries(not our one) which lost a propeller while crossing Cook Strait a couple of days ago.

Hopefully things will be back to normal next week & once we have a day to cross in mind we can book ahead as we want to travel on one particular ferry; the drive on, drive off Kaitaki which is ideal for fifth-wheelers. The Kaitaki also has recently been relaunched after a major refurbishment, inside & out & comes with a Premium Lounge. I have too many bad memories of long ago Cook Strait crossings so I'm hoping a little more luxury this time (& fine weather) might help erase the horror of those past rough rides.

Last week was Dad's birthday and we celebrated it by having lunch at Off The Track restaurant in Havelock North, a restaurant that Dad & Mum had wanted to take us too the next time we were in town. It was a lovely spacious restaurant & café just off one of the many Hawkes Bay cycle trails, hence its name, and had Te Mata Peak framed in this large picture window. The meals were great although rather large, the coffee was superb & topped off with a fine work of art.

In the evening we went to a film I had been chasing around half of the North Island to see. It was in the NZ Film Festival & I had missed it in Tauranga as we'd been in Auckland, it was then in Whangarei but we left a day earlier, then Whakatane but we were in the process of moving house & now finally I saw that "Soul of the Sea" was here in Napier but only on the night of Dad's birthday. So I convinced the family to come with me & not knowing how large the theatre was going to be I wanted to arrive early enough to get a good seat. I needn't have worried there were only about 10 people in a theatre that sat a couple of hundred!

No problems seeing the screen!

Soul of the Sea is the story of Moko, the friendly bottle nose dolphin that I swum with a few years ago. I had met most of the people in the film & in fact there was a fleeting view of me as the camera zoomed past the sea of faces at Moko's memorial. As an added bonus & a surprise I got to see my name on the big screen, in the credits at the end, because I had donated some money (& photos) to help the film maker, Amy Taylor produce the movie. I was pleased to have finally caught up with the film, the final chapter for me, on Moko.

Not only did we go to the Moko movie we were given tickets  to the premier of the Paul Potts movie, One Chance, the story of the rags to riches story of the Welsh opera singer & winner of Britian's Got Talent. We all thoroughly enjoyed it too, it's well worth seeing. So after not having been to the movies in quite a number of years Mum & Dad got to go twice in a week!

Over Labour weekend the Gypsy Fair was in progress just around the corner in Anderson Park. We had a wander through the odd assortment of vans, buses, stalls, people & dogs. And marvelled in particular at the bus in the top photo. That must surely be the earliest version of a slide out there is. Maybe that's where the alternative term of "push out" (& push in) comes from.

During the week I took the opportunity of paying a last visit to my favourite pair of ducks. These plumed whistling ducks are very rare visitors to New Zealand (only 2 or 3 sightings have ever been recorded) and they have made a suburban pond their home for the last few years. I have been visiting them regularly on my visits to Napier and up until the beginning of last winter there were in fact three ducks. Sadly one has disappeared sometime over the colder months & I wonder what will happen if & when another disappears. There will be one very lonely duck left behind.  Their natural habitat is in tropical northern Australia & Indonesia so they are a very long way from home.

Yesterday I had my first round of golf since my foot operation, just six days short of four months since the op & I was a little nervous of how my feet were going to stand up to the rigors of playing 9 holes of golf even though I had a cart to carry me (& Mum) around. My feet are still quite swollen & I have only been able to wear a couple of pair of shoes with adjustable straps, up until today that is. I couldn't get my golf shoes on but I managed to get my walking shoes on with their softer sides. It was still quite a tight fit & I worried that I'd have to remove them before I got too far but they were fine. And my golf wasn't too bad either, I managed to match Dad on a couple of holes & beat him on another, I was just a little rusty here & there but I was happy I did as well as I did. Although I did lose two balls in exactly the same spot which didn't help with my score.

                                       Waiohiki Golf Course Hole #9                                                      Mum looking for my lost balls

We had a few drinks last weekend with extended family and we've come up with a name for these gatherings; we're having drinks with a "Chatter Platter". There are many females on my mother's side of the family and they span four generations in ages & we all like to talk, lots! Usually it is very hard to hear yourself think let alone get a word in so when we saw a Chatter Platter on the menu at Off The Track Restaurant we decided it fitted the Johnstone girls perfectly.

I've had a bit of a distraction while writing my blog & catching up on paper work this past week. This has been the view from the dining table as the neighbourhood transformer gets replaced right beside where we are parked. Little do they know that they are being watched as I sit typing at my laptop although I must say it's a little bit disconcerting waking up in the morning when there's just a thin wall between you in bed & them out there. There have been lots of comings & goings with anything up to six men and four vehicles here at once, they all seem to have their own particular job to do & there's much leaning on the bollards offering advice to each other. And occasionally in amongst the group I even see a white haired lady offering advice!

The Weird, the Wacky & the Wonderful

Sunday evening & our time at the Mount campground is coming to an end. Just two more days & we’ll be on the road, heading for the next two week stop, Napier for more farewells.

We’ve had an extremely busy time here & today was the first time in over two weeks that we’ve been able to relax a little & enjoy the sunny weather & all the activity going on around us.

 After my last blog post I know you’ll all be keen to hear that the total on the counter at 5pm this evening was 44,881. That’s forty four thousand, eight hundred & eighty one! That means that a small city of 32,435 has passed by our door over the last 10 days, 9880 people alone have pounded the boardwalk this weekend (or plodded, as the case may be) And from my seat at the table I have a good view of the passing traffic in all its various forms.

So many people doing so much exercise. I felt worn out watching them all.

Both these lots were doing extreme exercise! The paddlers would have paddled back & forth across the bay at least 20 times & the runners were up and down those steps a similar number of times.

The camp site has filled and emptied many times over since we’ve been here. After the storm blew through we had the place to ourselves for a few days, it was lovely;  peace & quiet.

I wonder who lost a hatch cover in the storm?

The last few evenings have brought a steady stream of hire sleepers & motorhomes of all shapes & sizes containing some interesting people. And this weekend the camp ground has filled up with caravans & families with plenty of children, some had come just for Saturday night.

These vans were either side of us for a couple of nights. I was in awe of the couple with the baby, so much gear was stacked in the van I'm surprised they managed to fit the baby in. As it was he sat outside in his plastic highchair in the cold wind whenever they had to do something inside (they wrapped him up & he was quite happy playing with his toys) I was more worried the wind was going to blow the chair over. And on our other side was a guy travelling alone but living like a king! He set up his table with all the gear for every meal. Very well organised he was.

At 6:30am this morning, while I was making a cup of tea, the young teenagers sleeping in the caravan awning next door to us decided they were going for a swim, two chickened out; one still has his sleeping bag wrapped around him. This is the brave one bellowing at the top of his voice as he came thundering up from the beach & straight through between the vans and on up to the shower block behind us. I think it was cold!

I can see life on the road is going to bring many interesting encounters & challengers especially for David. Here he is today being a mechanic & last night, a relationship counsellor. The German guys had just purchased their car & it wouldn't start this morning when they went to leave. The battery was flat or so it seemed but the jumper leads didn't help; David's & another guy that came by. So the car sat all day with a couple of sad looking travellers in it. They were going to wait until tomorrow before getting it to a workshop. But David came back from the lock up this afternoon with his battery charger & after a good charge the engine sprang into life. David has new best friends!

An Austrian couple were obviously experiencing a dose of cabin fever when they arrived in the afternoon. An argument in any language is easy to spot and after a couple of hours or so of heated discussion and much pacing & packing they had calmed down enough to engage in a conversation with David as he was passing later in the evening.

 And then just when we think we've seen it all along comes Tonto & the Lady Ranger. Don't ask...

Next, from around the point came some warriors in their waka.

The best (& the saddest) part of the weekend has been saying goodbye to friends & family that have been visiting us at the beach. After going out for lunch with the family we brought our darling grand-daughter Maddie back for one last play at the beach. We are going miss her & her brother Joel so very much when we leave but then we're looking forward to seeing our other two grandchildren, Ollie & Ruby very much too. We wish they were all in the same city.

A Succesful Show

The Covi Caravan & Motorhome Show is well & truly over now & we have headed north. The whole weekend was a very busy one not only inside the showground halls but also outside in the huge car park where as you can see there were hundreds of motorhomes, buses, caravans & fifth-wheelers parked up for the weekend rally. Parked up in straight & tidy rows, every available space was taken with the overflow filling up another smaller car park next door. Here in our park I counted  10 rows of vehicles stretching back probably at least 500 metres to the main gates.

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t that wonderful on any of the 3 days & on Saturday night around 2am a horrendous thunder & lightning storm raged directly overhead for an hour or so. The rain was torrential & the noise on the roof deafening & every time there was a flash of lighting it lit up the whole van through the skylights and the thunder claps actually shook the van.  As I lay there listening, I wondered how many vehicles might have sprung a leak and also whether the vehicles laid out there like they were, might attract lightning bolts. The morning dawned fine & clear & it looked like no one had suffered too much although our friends told us they de-camped to their car in the middle of the storm, feeling much safer there.

We were at the show for two reasons; as happy owners,  & clients, we were helping out “On the Road RV” on their Ultima Stand and secondly we had a number of items to purchase.

 

Over the last 25 years we have regularly attended shows with numerous products from most of our business; Fieldays, Home Shows, A&P Shows, Boat Shows & Bike Shows, we have done dozens here in NZ & in Europe, UK & the States, & now we can add Motorhome Show to the list. But it was very different when you don’t own the business there's none of that "sale, sale, sale" pressure there. We had a great time although we were both tired by the end, we’d forgotten how hard standing on your feet all day, smiling nicely & talking constantly can be. As owners with a lot of experience now of living in the van for both long & short periods we were able to answer many questions accurately & truthfully and offer a load  of advice to people that were contemplating buying a fifth-wheeler either for holidays or for permanent  living. There are a surprising amount of people  who are making the decision, like us, to become permanent gypsies.

Two couples who had made the decision to buy Ultimas came back to our van after the show one evening to check on how we had set up the interior.  One couple brought a bottle of bubbly to celebrate their purchase which was shared around.  (Excuse the out of focus photos they were taken with my cell phone)

 

We had Sunday off as we needed to follow up on a couple of items we were looking at buying, have a look around the stands & then head off to Whangarei in the early afternoon.

And here are our new purchases, a 3.4 Takacat inflatable dinghy & a 2kw Honda generator which should help out with my power hungry computer amongst other things.  Now we just need to rearrange the ute & fifth-wheeler again to fit everything in & still allow room for the outboard which will be the next purchase. It is becoming a real juggling act & I know we will be off-loading a few smaller things for good once we get back to Tauranga.

 

And here's one for the road...

Rustic Farmyard- Kirita Bay

After 3 nights we are about to leave one of what I’m sure is going to be our more interesting sites. This is the NZMCA lowcost park over property that we were wanted to stop at in the pouring rain the other day when we came up the coast. We liked the look of it and decided to come back here, mind you on first impressions we wondered if we’d made the right decision. The road down to this beautiful bay is rather steep & narrow but Marie, our host, told us on the phone ‘no problems, our laden sheep trucks come & go all the time’ & it wasn’t that bad although everyone we’ve met down here is a little afraid of the return journey especially the 2wd vehicles &/or meeting another vehicle on the way down. Stopping & starting 4 times to open & close gates doesn’t help either, especially the vans that only have one person in them.

And Marie was right, we managed fine. There was one other fifth-wheeler already parked up (they had brought their large dog & two parrots on holiday with them!) and with the direction of little signs we found our way through the mass of retired farm junk, buildings & machinery to the beach front. 

The Welcoming Committee

We did meet George, Marie’s husband on the way down & he directed us to park along the garden fence at the back of the site so the smaller campervans could park along the front when & if they arrived later in the day. Another benefit of us not being in a hurry & travelling short distances is we get to a new site late morning/early afternoon and have the pick of spots.

The “garden fence” was a rickety old farm fence that had in a previous life surrounded the holding yard of an equally rusty & rundown cowshed.  It now enclosed a large vegetable patch at the end of its summer growing season although there was a row of kumara (sweet potato) coming along nicely for winter. The local turkey family & a few blackbirds were sampling the tomatoes & many of the pumpkins were half eaten. Obviously the netting draped over the pumpkin patch did not work although it must have slowed the turkeys down a bit; I rescued a young turkey chick at one stage who was trussed up like, well, a turkey. He’d been doing a few backward & forward rolls trying to catch up with his mother & sibling when they took off without him.

We lined up nice & straight along the fence leaving enough room to open the slide-out, it wasn’t until we sat down at the table and there right outside our dining room window were 3 large piles of cow dung! Put there to fertilise the garden for the next season I’m assuming but right now sitting steaming away in the hot afternoon heat, smelling very high & attracting flies from all directions. But then along came the farm chooks which over the 3 days we’ve been here have quickly demolished & scattered each pile, scratching, pecking & clucking their way through finding lots of tasty grubs & seeds on the way. The highlight for me though were the family of quail, eight cocks & one very pretty hen, that came in the late afternoon to do the same. Fantastic! What gorgeous wee birds they are with fabulous feather detail, something I’ve not seen up close for awhile as they are quite timid birds.

As the afternoon wore on other campervans & buses trickled in & found their positions. It wasn’t too large an area but everyone was very mindful of not blocking other’s views. By nightfall there were ten buses, vans & fifth-wheelers parked up. There were about the eight on the second night and last night seven vans of various types, 3 tents, 6 fizz boats & 22 fisher-men & women from Papamoa. The farm has a bach (holiday cottage) in the corner of the bay where quite a few of them slept. They were quick to apologise for any noise they were going to make last night but in fact we didn’t hear a thing, probably because we were making our own noise with 2 couples across the way. I mean how could you not join in when one of the buses had this number plate and there was a beautiful sunset to watch.

We will have to keep an eye on our evening entertainment as it would be very easy to get into the happy-hour routine & while there’s nothing wrong with that when you’re on holiday for a week or so we wouldn’t like to make a habit of it every night of the week for the next year or so!

One evening after he’d mustered the lambs down to the woolshed just behind the camp site(he was dosing them the next day), George stopped by for a chat along with the farm dogs who waited patiently while he drank a beer & told us about the farm. He was the seventh generation to farm the large station and times have & still are very tough. I asked him when he had stopped milking, “November, 1979” he said matter-of-factly; I’m not sure whether he was so exact about the date because he was pleased or sad about that fact. The very hilly & steep land didn’t seem to me to be very suitable for dairying. They now just run sheep & beef. The motorhome park brings in a little more income & I wonder why more farmers aren’t doing this as it’s a relatively easy way to diversify and provide some fantastic overnighting opportunities for motorhomers. With the amount of coastline NZ has there are sure to be hundreds of accessible private bays like Kirita Bay.

I climbed up the hill behind us one evening to catch this old gnarly Puriri tree & pump shed in the good light of the late afternoon sun, an added bonus was the house cow & calf enjoying the view as well.

We are beginning to learn that you can never judge a book by its cover while living life on the road, we had a most wonderful stay & thoroughly enjoyed our visit.

Six degrees

There is no ‘6 degrees removed’ in NZ, I’d say it was 1 or 2 degrees; in just 2 weeks of being on the move we have met our housekeeper from 14 years ago who parked up beside us at a DOC camp, the owner/administrator of a motorhoming forum I belong to was parked up on the other side. While soaking in the thermal pool of another camping ground we also met a friend/colleague, & family, of David’s daughter who lives in Invercargill (for those reading from overseas, Invercargill is just about as far away as you can get from us in NZ, any further & you’re in the Southern Ocean & on the way to Antarctica)

And now David’s sister & husband who are parked in the same camping ground as us, they’ve been here for 10 days & while we knew they were in the Coromandel somewhere, it was a surprise to see them just down the way. It’s certainly a small world. Oh yes I nearly forgot, & my parents. But I guess that doesn’t count as we were parked up beside their house at the time ;)

David's sister Jackie steps out of their campervan

We are finding life on the road is a very friendly one & we’re meeting lots of interesting people. It helps when you have a husband who is extra friendly & a good listener, I’m not sure folk have any intention of telling him their life stories when they meet him but invariably by the time he’s finished chatting he knows it all. He must have a very trusting face. I think he should have been Irish instead of English he’s excellent at indulging in some ‘criac’. We’ve been given fresh snapper fillets for dinner twice, once by the camp owner who only caught 4 fish & last night by the bus parked up beside us. At this rate David won’t need to go fishing! I wonder if there are any scallop divers handy……

The other day a guy who came across from the digger he was operating near where we were parked made himself known to us as he wanted to know more about our rig, at the end of a very looooong conversation he said he was bringing us fresh vegetables the next day but he forgot! Oh well win some, lose some.

I’m liking the privacy the fifth-wheeler gives us though, with tinted windows and insect screens it’s very hard to see inside during the day, unlike some campervans where I’m sure the occupants feel like they’re inside a goldfish bowl. In fact it’s quite disconcerting when people come along and stand right beside a window while discussing &/or admiring the van especially when right above them I’m doing the dishes or making dinner! It does make it great for people-watching though when you’re parked up in a busy bay or campsite.

At Long Bay over the holidays or a long weekend they are often full and their capacity is 640 people, that sounds like an horrendous amount to us and looking at the size of the sites everybody would be packed in cheek to jowl. We're both certain we would not enjoy that one little bit. We'll see how we go over the coming Easter weekend when we're meant to be at the DOC camp in Port Jackson.

Long Bay Campground where we are parked in 2 sites