6 November 2016 - Whangarei Central Holiday Park, Whangarei, Northland

We have been back from our wonderful travels around the UK for just over three weeks now. The first was spent just getting back on our feet, or more correctly, our wheels. The motorhome’s COF had expired and the Isuzu which our friends had so kindly stored under a cover in the corner of their garden, needed attention. 

Travelling north from the Waikato where our motorhome had been stored to our official place of residence, we encountered electronic problems with our very smart Mercedes base vehicle which prompted us to overnight (in the futile hope the problem would disappear in the interim) at the Wenderholme Regional Park. There is a silver lining to most clouds and this was no exception. We had often stayed  here en route north or south, but this time we found it less busy than usual, possibly because of the residual flooding all about, however the bellbirds and tuis were as wonderfully vocal at dawn, the pukekos as comical as ever and the canopy of pohutakawas as old friends waiting to be dressed in the summer crimson finery. We nursed the vehicle all the way back to Whangarei where the dealers soon had the problem sorted. I say “soon” but actually the fix did require us to sit about their very smart waiting area drinking expressos, eating grapes and bananas, whiling the time away chatting with other motorhomers who were in for the very same reason.

We caught up with our three children and their families, albeit so very briefly, and then in a more leisurely manner, my parents whose lives are far less frantic than those of their grandchildren. 

I was lucky, or unlucky enough, depending on your view, to have my name drawn from the ballot box to serve on the jury, not just that which requires you to gather with eighty others on a stated day, but part of the narrowed down elite. Jury duty is something most of us would prefer to avoid, and while the case I sat on was as harrowing and hideous as any other, we had the satisfaction of arriving at a verdict that met with the judge’s approval.

Back in the capital of this northern province, we spent several days out at Parua Bay, perched on the hillside overlooking the bay, surrounded by the tui-populated totara trees. While our mower man had kept the grassed area in check, the weeds had crept in on the edges and needed to be attacked. The cabbage tree leaves had spread their woven mat over inconvenient areas so we were kept busy for several days restoring complete order. Bizarrely, in all the years our mower man has attended to the grassy expanse, we had never actually met him in person. He turned up one day while we were there, and I was rather horrified to find that he was not much younger than us, if at all. We now have the added concern that he will want to retire from the task sometime soon and we will have to find a replacement. We were better off not knowing! 

My civic duty and our personal maintenance requirements were better met by relocating to the city so we settled into this camping ground a couple of weeks ago, greeting the hosts, the regulars and the permanents like old friends. Here there are those past retirement age assisting with the ground maintenance or pursuing part-time careers as drivers off site. The young back packer types arrive either with their tents or their cars or their whizz-bank vans, thankfully here rather than the side of the road where they have apparently been fouling New Zealand’s clean green environment (hence Christchurch’s very recent bylaw change to regulate against “freedom campers”). This is an excellent camping ground in that it is reasonably priced and so centrally located, just walking distance from large supermarkets and the city centre, such as there is here in Whangarei.

Hair has been coloured, teeth scraped and cleaned and welded, bodily functions tested and medications adjusted, to name but a few of the more tedious tasks. New clothes have been bought, just because, even though there was really no need to jam the limited storage space of our mobile home with even more. Suitcases were unpacked and returned to their rightful owners, and souvenirs stowed under our house, our storage stash. Our tenant was alerted to the fact that we intended to head off again next year for the northern summer and they could count on a rollover of their lease.

And while all this business was being attended to, we took time to renew our acquaintance with the excellent library we have in Whangarei, admire the wonderful waterfront and just last night, patronise the public fire works with our Whangarei granddaughters and their parents. The pyrotechnics were as wonderful as the last time we attended, if not better, the local band that played in the build-up were excellent, although we were more attentive to our family and those that joined us, spreading their picnic rugs next to ours and sharing the picnic dinner.

But now all these little tasks and entertainments are complete, our feet are itchy once more. 

Tomorrow we are off again, up north to check out some of the lovely places we rediscovered eighteen months ago, although we have decided not to travel all the way to the top. I had been keen to walk part of that most northern track across the tip of the island in better climatic conditions, but from here it seems so very far away, and our real summer destination is to the south. This will only be an interlude.