And finally the ute has arrived

One Ford Ranger XLT 4x4 Super Cab 3.2l Utility with our name on it has finally arrived on the Ford Dealership's yard after six months of waiting.  Due to the popularity of the automatic gearbox NZ only get a few vehicles in each shipment; one of the negatives about being a small consumer country.

We were keen to see the super cab configuration as we'd only been able to look at the double cab when we placed the order. Our ute has the "suicide" doors; no door pillar which is great for access to the back, and with a bigger well side for the hitch and also with enough room to have a lockable storage box across the back behind the cab. As we won't be carrying passengers that often we felt we didn't need the comfort & room of the double cab seats in the back. We may remove the small "dicky" seats and build a solid floor in so we can store more gear behind the front seats.

The colour is " Sparkling Gold" and while we know it's not quite the same as the van we're hoping it will tone in nicely.

 

 

 

The ute is now having the hitch & electirical wiring fitted before it will be deliver to us late next week.

 

The Ford Ranger is so popular & in short supply (it was the best selling vehicle in the Ford range, even ahead of cars, for a number of months last year) that our dealer has already been approached  to see if we'd be prepared to wait so others could jump the queue. Not likely!!

World Famous in Greenmeadows

A small(or should I say rather large) spanner was thrown in the works last Friday.

Initially there were two major negative issues that I had to come to terms with when we made the decision to go travelling. One was selling my dream home & while it took a while eventually I could see that we really needed to do that to fufil our dream. So the house was sold & we've moved on & it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be. I think because I had 3 months before settlement to get used to the idea I was prepared for it.

The second & bigger issue that I had to come to terms with was about what we were going to do with my two "babies", my 10 year old British Shorthair cats who I'd had from kittens and were very much a part of our family. I know people say they're "just cats" & you can't let pets rule your life but this was one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. I would have loved to have taken them with us travelling & we probably could have but it would have been no life for them on the road & we would have found it very restrictive in places we may visit or things we might want to do.

My parents who live in Napier, a 4 hour drive away, had indicated that they might be able to take them both in but sadly well before the house sold & decisions had to be made, my beloved boy Clay picked up a fatal viral infection and passed away within 2 months.

Clay- short for Cassius Clay

This then just left Lily.  Mum & Dad have also recently lost their lovely old dog Tess and after talking to them again now that things were moving along, they decided they could take Lily in. I knew she would be going to best home possible & that they'd end up loving her as much as we did. Even with her quirky personality traits, she would get under their skin just as much as she had with us.


Lily

We took Lily to Napier over Christmas & stayed two weeks to settle her in. She is not a good traveller & meowed for the whole 4 hour drive but once there settled in quickly within a couple of days. Every day though, I wanted to bundle her back into her cage & take her home, but I managed to resist the urge knowing that this was the right thing to do. It was a sad goodbye when it was time for us to return home.

Which brings me back to that "spanner" After a week by herself with Mum & Dad & with positive reports of how she was settling in she decided to go "walkabout" one night. Lily can't climb & is scared of heights(she damaged a leg when she was kitten) but she managed to squeeze out under a gate and then didn't come home. She's a timid cat & wouldn't come to just anybody. Mum & Dad were frantic and after 6 hours of searching called to give me the bad news.

We were hoping she had just tucked herself up somewhere cool(it's been 30-35c) nearly every day & would find her way home in the early evening. But no, still no sign of her Saturday evening. By then I had already thrown a few things in the car and headed off to Napier, again. I got there around 10pm and hit the streets calling & searching. Back at the house I also made up a couple of missing ads for two internet sites and a flyer that we could deliver in the morning. We all didn't have much sleep that night.

I was up again at 5am out calling & searching in the quite of the morning. I did "find" plenty of other cats & Dad searching as well but no Lily. We then delivered over 400 flyers around the immediate neighbourhood hence the "World Famous in Greenmeadows" tag. It was very hot I got sunburnt & have blisters on my feet. All the time we were delivering we were calling her, checking under bushes & asking anybody we saw if they'd seen her. We also stuck flyers on the notice boards at the local supermarket & shops. I phoned the local Vets, radio stations, SPCA & sent texts to the local paper; still no sign of her. We were all getting tired & desperate. Where could she be! As Sunday afternoon drew on it got hotter & hotter & we decided to give it a break until the early evening.

A large creek and native planting runs along the road across from the house & while we had walked it many times during our search I thought I'd do it once again but on the otherside of the creek. I had to park the car down the other end of the street to get access around a fence to then be able to walk up the length & back along the far side of it. I parked my car about 5 houses from the end under a tree and away from the corner.

I did the walk up & back, about 2kms with no luck but as I was diagonally crossing the road back to my car I happened to glance up a narrow back path behind the house next door to where I was parked. And that was when I spotted my "baby" in the gloom of dusk. She was just sitting there looking all around as if she didn't know quite what to do. I called her & she was a bit nervous even though she knew my voice. She wouldn't come to me so I had to quickly climb the fence & walked down to where she was. I grabbed her & held her tight until I got her inside the car then I can honestly say the emotions took over & tears of joy came, what an incredible feeling of relief. I was so relived as were Mum & Dad when I got home. I don't think they quite believed me at first, we had very nearly given up hope.

We'll never know what she got up to or where she went but I think she just walked off down the road exploring and got too far away to know her way back home. She ate quite a bit and drank heaps but didn't seem too worse for wear after being missing for 48 hours but she certainly slept a heck of a lot. She now wears her collar & name tag at all times & has a microchip. And I'm now back home after a very stressful 3 days.



Lily sleeping off her ordeal

We should have been here...

for New Year, although after looking at the access track I don't think we would have made it over quite a dip in the gravel track at the entrance to the river.

This is the Tuki Tuki River in Hawkes Bay, a great trout fishing river although the water is very low over summer. This is classic Kiwi camping and what we're looking forward to with a few more mod-cons than the family has! All good fun.

Just In Time....

for Christmas!

Today the Fifth Wheeler was delivered to our drive after it's pre-delivery inspection & requested mods were completed. It sure looked huge as it appeared down our little right of way.

  



But will it turn easily in the turning bay at the end of the way? No problems & with room to spare!

And luckily our drive was made for it! Nice fit & still enough room for the cars.

 

"And now if I can just work out this hitch..."
 

And this is where it will sit until our ute(utility) arrives, originally the ute was due in October along with the van but it has twice been delayed, now 6 months in total, and is due in mid January. It is lucky that we hadn't planned to head off full time until March, 2013 but it would have been nice if we'd been able to take it to Napier & go camping with family over Christmas & New Year.

 

Oh well at least we'll be able to set the inside up at our leisure, learn all the ins & outs & different switches & maybe have a few trial nights in it while it's parked safely in the drive.

 

 

 

It's arrived!

After a three month wait the main player of the Evans travelling road show has finally arrived from the States and has been unloaded at the yard of our Mt Maunganui dealer On the Way RV. It now has another couple of weeks of titivating before delivery to our driveway. And there it will sit until January. Unfortunately our Ford Ranger ute has been delayed by three months off the production line in Thailand. Apparently the automatic gearboxes for these Fords are in hot demand in the States and most are sent that way. NZ's supply is not really on the radar.

We will at least be able to fit the fifth-wheeler out totally & test the cooking & sleeping arrangements while it's parked in the drive. Thankfully it will fit quite nicely there.

Now to name it....
And no, that's not the TV aerial ;)

 

Which mobile home to choose....

Once that the house was sold we now had to decide on what type of mobile home we would buy. A bus, a motorhome/campervan, a caravan or a fifth-wheeler. After much research and visits to campervan & caravan shows & various dealers yards in the end we decided on a fifth-wheeler.

What about this one?
 In fact this brought back many memories for David, he used to sell the
NZ made Trekkas when he first came to NZ back in 1968

We never really considered buying a bus, motorhomes were the next to be crossed off our list as we wanted to be mobile once we were parked up and not have to pack up and secure our belongings before we could visit the shops or local attractions, parks etc. We're planning on doing a lot of day trips as we may be parked up at some places for a week or two or more so to be able to leave the site without packing up was a priority. The caravan really never stayed on the the list for long either, we wanted to be able to take whatever we purchased, while not necessarily off road, certainly into some back country areas quite easily and most caravans aren't robust enough, and also the size we were considering lacked the interior space we felt we needed as this was going to be our full-time home. This left us the fifth-wheeler.

I've been asked many times over what a fifth wheeler is, the easiest explanation I've read is that it's an articulated caravan. None the wiser? The fifth wheel is the hitch that joins the caravan to the vehicle that is towing it, usually but not always a ute (utility). It hitches onto a turntable that is positioned on the deck of the vehicle. This makes towing & manoeuvring the van much easier and allows for a lot more room inside as the front of the van swings over the deck of the vehicle; the bedroom is usually located in this area. Fifth-wheelers also have one, two or three "slide outs", these slide out from the walls of the van opening up the interior to nearly double the size, allowing for good sized lounge areas, galley or other bedrooms. They slide back in when on the road. There are very large fifth-wheelers out there, they are very popular in the States & Australia but we needed to compromise on space, we wanted to be able to have enough space that we didn't feel like we were living in a sardine can but not so big that we couldn't tow it easily. Size & weight also had a bearing when it came to road transport regulations and where the van & ute fitted into the licensing parameters; both vehicle & driver. Too heavy &/or big & we'd be paying extra road tax over and above what is included in the diesel price per litre.



Fifth wheeler with slide-out, out

In the end we decided on an Evergreen Ultima Fifth Wheeler, the van would take 3 months to arrive from America which was good timing as the Ford Ranger Supercab we'd also ordered to tow it would take three months also. The Ultima is built for New Zealand road conditions including driving on the left hand side of the road; the entry door opens so that you are exiting away from the road.

http://www.ultimarv.com.au/

How it all began...

In April 2011 we (that is my husband David & I) made the life changing decision to sell our dream home overlooking the beautiful Tauranga harbour and "hit the road", so to speak. Buy a mobile home and travel the country, be free and easy with no itinerary in mind, make the journey the adventure not the destination, relax & enjoy life, all those cliches we hear from time to time. This was a momentous decision and it didn't come easy or quickly, we had many sleepless nights; "do we, don't we?" We felt we couldn't do the change of lifestyle justice if we didn't sell the house, we'd always have a "bolthole" to run back to and besides that, our home was quite large and required a lot of ongoing maintenance which would mean we'd have to return to it regularly to catch up on chores. We also knew we didn't want to rent it out.

Tauranga Harbour

This would be a total change of lifestyle, we love the "great outdoors" and have travelled extensively overseas but other than a few brief holidays at various New Zealand locations over the years we had not taken the time to explore out own piece of paradise. The NZ tourism ad "Don't leave home until you've seen the country" springs to mind. We are not entirely new to having a small movable home; we've spent many happy days & weeks boating around the coast of northern New Zealand in our 11 metre power cat (catamaran) and having worked & lived together 24/7 for over 25 years, living in a confined space with your better half was not going to be a problem either. Yet! ;)

The house went on the market in May 2011 and while we knew it wouldn't sell overnight we were getting a little frustrated by the time we signed on the dotted line in July 2012. In the end the 3 month wait for settlement date in late September was a blessing as it gave us time to get used to the idea that we'd be moving on and also gave me time to sort, sell, dispose of &/or pack the huge amount of gear we'd collected over the years including records from our previous 3 businesses. Everything that we wanted to keep was boxed and colour coded for each room or area & either for long-term storage or current use. As it turned out we've ended up with another delightful home which became part of the trade and which we will be living in until our fifth-wheeler & ute arrives. We are not sure yet whether we'll sell this or keep it short-term, those decisions will be made next year. Other than a few "shake-down" trips we aren't intending to hit the road full time until at least March 2013. We have a VIB due in February. VIB? Very important baby; grandchild #4.

Bittersweet