Can I have one of those?

NZMCA clock at Takapau presented to them by the Wellington Branch of the NZMCA on the opening of the park in 2005 .

Latitude 40 South

Waipukurau's claim to fame being the only town on the 40deg South parallel line.

How we miss the internet?

A nice sheltered spot at Takapau NZMCA Camp.

A trip into Waipukerau again to access the internet, must do something about this Vodafone and look at Telecom.  Not much good with our monthly contract if I can’t use it, especially with our extended travel down south in the new year.  Now how do I cancel the contract legally without penalty?

Our thoughts are with all the people affected with the unseasonably heavy rainfall throughout the country, we have been lucky here. So far that is!

Interesting visitors.

Other than calling in the mower man to cut the grass on site it’s been a case of same old, same old. However last night a real Gypsy style wooden bodied motorhome pulled into camp which immediately bought to mind hippies with waist length dread locks. How wrong we were, because we were about to meet world class chef Michael Daly, his wife Louelle and their 2 sons. Michael, who hails from Ireland, has just completed a book on freedom food recipes using ingredients that can be found in the wild and safely eaten. This should be on book sellers shelves in April.

They have opted to take 2 years out of their normally busy lifestyle to travel New Zealand in a motorhome before deciding on what’s next in life. After showing them pictures of our adventures aboard Narrowboat Gypsy Rover I’m guessing that a narrowboat adventure of their own could well be on the cards. Well you have to live the dream. Good luck guys.

Never a dull moment here.

Just as well you can't see the gateway. It's even narrower.

We have had an interesting couple of days here at the NZMCA camp. I have been giving the toilet block a thorough Spring clean as previous wardens obviously have not had the cleaning expertise required. All the necessary chemicals are available but it’s a case of knowing which one to use for each task.

Mind the water trough.

Today we had something quite different in the form of a 20 foot empty container being delivered. Being an empty container I expected it to arrive on a small truck normally used for this purpose but no Mainfreight sent it on one of their the biggest rig’s capable of carrying 2 x 20 foot containers or 1 x 40 footer.

So far, so good.

Luckily the driver was up to the job because we only had centimetre's to spare negotiating along a fence line with a water trough just in the wrong place. Of course we couldn’t shift the trough but the driver manoeuvred within a few centimetre’s giving him just enough room to offload the container exactly where we wanted it. 

Final touch down with just a little juggling of the chains.

We have had 2 visitors each day so far and tonight a late arrival made it 3 for today. She had just driven down from north of Gisborne where she had been freedom camping. She was looking forward to a long shower and a good nights sleep.

A mega truck for a miniscule task.

Happy Birthday to me!

Thanks to all the kind messages from friends that I am unable to reply to.

We’re in charge.

We certainly had a busy week-end at Jenny and Robin’s home. Friday and Saturday were both 10 hour days taking advantage of the long days and good weather due to the long range forecast for Sunday being unfavourable for painting. As it turned out, it rained in Wellington but stayed away from Upper Hutt giving Robin and I another opportunity  for further painting. By the time we knocked off at about 4pm 3 walls had been completed and the back of the house only needed 2 top coats. Quite an achievement in any bodies books. Robin just has to finish off any last minute touch ups.

Monday we returned to Geoff and Eileen’s in Otaki after visiting my Mother at Porirua. At 95 she can still run rings around others 10 years her junior although she does have memory lapses at times. Back at Otaki I gave the grounds a quick once over with the ride on mower and then found that Geoff had picked up another trailer load of bark chip over the week-end. This was quickly unloaded along the driveway garden. Robin had found some old  packets of Pea and Bean seeds and donated these to Eileen as he no longer has a vegetable garden. These were sown in the hope that they might grow despite the date on the packets.

Tuesday morning it was time for us to leave Otaki and head North to Takapau where we have a booking as Camp Wardens at the NZ Motor Caravan Association camp until the 19th. When we left Otaki the weather was fine but we could see the imminent bad weather rolling in around us. Everything went well until we started to climb across the Tararua Ranges via the Pahiatua Track. Despite the name this is a 2 way sealed highway which is undergoing major improvements. At the highest point we were virtually up in the clouds with visibility reduced to about 200 yards. Luckily this didn’t last long as we descended down into Hawkes Bay. At Pahiatua we turned left onto SH2 heading towards Hastings and our final destination.

At the camp we met Les the warden we were relieving and went through a hand over procedure and he was soon on his way home to Wanganui. We hadn’t even got ourselves set up on site before our first client arrived with another arriving a couple of hours later. We have finally got ourselves organised and hopefully worked our way through our duties list, so lets see what the next 2 weeks brings forth.

Very poor internet, so no pictures I’m sorry.  Took me nearly an hour to upload this.