8 December 2017 - Parua Bay, Whangarei Harbour, Northland

The fine warm weather has continued delighting us every day although I am sure the farmers here in the north will soon be crying in their tea cups and praying for rain. The open ground here beside the bush is starting to crack open and the foliage browning off. We spent some days clearing the weeds which were waist high in places, growth and colour that elsewhere we would celebrate as wildflower meadows. I persevered for a mere hour pulling up bracken until hay fever chased me back to the van. In contrast Chris donned overalls and earmuffs to weed-eat the perimeter of the commercially mown area. In the middle of this endeavour, our mowing man turned up with his ride-on and hand mower and tidied up the central areas; hence our “garden” is now neatly manicured and spoiled for the birds which had been enjoying the wildlife.

Wild flowers on Jumbo before the big mow and slash

When we initially arrived back on to the section, we disturbed a pair of rosellas, delightful parrots and reminiscent of our time in Australia. They along with the indigenous and other introduced species continue to entertain us, serenading each end of the day and in between for good measure.  And interestingly the morning after the big mow, the pair of gorgeous Eastern Rosellas spent hours poking about in the “hay” below our elevated gaze.

Actually to say “we” bush whacked is actually very unfair to Chris, because it was he that did all the hard work, wielding the cumbersome weed-eater, and the spray wand, and most of the other exhausting stuff required to tame the wilderness. I reserved my efforts for administrative tasks such as trying to sort issues out with Chris’s new phone. (Here again the word “new” is not strictly correct because he ended up with my hand-me-down and it was I who scored the new phone.) The problems with his Apple account arose from the fact that he purchased an app in the UK, just one little app all about a cycling race, and this managed to confuse the regional settings. Spark staff, yours truly and the people on the end of chat lines and phone calls all were unable to rest this so the “fix” was quite complicated. Finally after several hours “chatting” with a very clever chap in Sydney employed by Apple, we arrived at a possible solution which I put into practice when we eventually managed to plug into mains power and endless Wi-Fi. 

Needless to say my husband is now recovered from his bout of UK flu although it was never really that; we have become all too ready to call anything that lays us low for more than a couple of days, the ‘flu. Already he is thinking about trips he would have us do away through the summer, although these will have to fit around our Christmas Day commitment and the repainting of the roof of our once-upon-a-time home.

Pleased as punch with our "new" car

As we travel in and out along the harbour to Whangarei, we note the changes of the pohutakawa blooms; within weeks they will be amass of crimson. The flame trees have also started to their own display, not unlike the poinsettias of Christmas, all in line with the Santa parades happening all around the country. We are surprised with the number of backpacker car based travellers already populating the specially designated camping spots along the harbour; near the boat club at Parua Bay and at Tamaterau, such stunning spots to wake up to. The Whangarei Harbour is indeed one of the most beautiful harbours in the world, but then we are biased.

Lazy oldies on the beach at Matakana Is

We passed otherwise idle days attending the cinema, calling on my parents, shopping for groceries and a new car. It was time for our poor old Isuzu, the 1994 workhorse that has served us well for the last sixteen years, to retire and we replaced it with a slightly younger vehicle, a station wagon that others would use as a people carrier. Hopefully this “new” eleven year old vehicle will serve as well as her predecessor, ferrying pots of paint, ladders and scaffolding for repairs and upkeep of our rentals. Despite the utilitarian nature of the purchase, we did feel like Christmas had come early.

In fact Christmas bounty continued even the same week. We delayed heading down to Waihi Beach to see Larissa and her family with unavoidable and unalterable appointments, finally getting away on the Friday afternoon. We were still short of our destination late that afternoon having spent four and three quarters of an hour travelling from Whangarei to Paeroa, with the slowest of the trip through Auckland, with no particular obstacle slowing the traffic down; it seems that this is just normal and it is such experiences that makes one glad to be living elsewhere.

Parked up beside the Rail Trail, we happened upon a rather eccentric chap complete with earring and three bikes for sale; one each for Papa, Mama and Little Bear. We could not resist the bargain and soon the two adult bikes were secured on the back of our motorhome, on the racks that previously supported the more superior bikes stolen when we were in South Auckland two years ago. These are well below standard but should meet our modest needs, mainly filling the empty rack and providing us with a sporty look.

While children and grandchildren ski

We spent the good part of a week in Waihi Beach, firstly parked up at the local RSA Club, enjoying the wide views over the sea, out to Mayor Island and beyond, observing the odd passing of large container ships departing the Port of Tauranga further south. After the allowed three days, we spent the next two parked up near the Community Centre which is less picturesque but equally suitable, or at least at this time of the year before the onslaught of the holidaymakers. 

Chris was employed in the back yard, digging and shovelling, a task not too unlike that undertaken at our rental last summer before we left for the UK. While he does love to be useful, I am sure a little part of him was happy to wake the morning of our departure knowing that the drive north would be the most strenuous part of the day. He also endeared himself to all by taking our granddaughter out for driving lessons, a task never for the fainthearted and certainly not for one as nervous as me. I seemed to do little but eat and talk, then eat some more, attend to Chris’s phone “repair” and oversee everyone else’s hard work.

Checking for stingrays

Whilst there we spent a morning out on the water under the glorious sunshine, or more correctly, my husband and I were taken out to Matakana Island across the Tauranga Harbour and settled there to guard the picnic breakfast and observe the ski-ing talents of all and the adept boat handling skills of both father and fifteen year old son. We had set our alarm for 5 am and were heading away from the launching ramp at Tanners Point soon after 7 am, hence the need for the picnic, although Chris and I had had time to sneak in our regular cereal as we are creatures of habit and waiting for “brunch” is not something that aligns with our digestion.

Camping at Waipu's Caledonian Park

The shore was littered with sea lettuce which has hit the television news since, reported to be a foul pollutant for the more fastidious bay dwellers. I did not find it so; it was a good barrier between us landlubbers and the numerous stingrays that lurked near the shore. We watched the herons swoop in and then depart again when the noisy motorboat returned to destroy the peace of our otherwise isolated posse. It was the first time I had been to Matakana Island, although views from the mainland across the long narrow harbour to the island are hardly new. I used to pick my way about the low tide near Katikati opposite the island forty years ago, and even   before then, as a small child visiting the beach at Mt Maunganui,  the southern tip of the Island was part of the landscape, for both Mount walkers and harbour paddlers. 

When we did eventually head north again,  our progress up through Auckland on the motorway was straight forward with none of the delays experienced just days before and we continued on up, breaking our journey at Waipu where we overnighted at the Caledonian Park, the venue of the annual New Year’s Day Celtic Highland Games. Here members of the NZMCA can stay plugged into power for a modest $10 and Chris thought it might give the motorhome batteries a good boost to do so. You know me; I never turn down the opportunity to enjoy un-rationed electricity.

23 November 2017 Parua Bay, Whangarei Harbour, Northland

More than three weeks have passed since we arrived back from the United Kingdom and it has taken this long to feel inspired to put index fingers to keyboard. We proved to be our fellow travellers’ worst nightmare neighbours coughing and choking all the way, in competition to the cries of unsettled babies one row ahead. For any readers who travelled London to Auckland via Qatar Airways in the last days of last month and shared our journey, what can I say? Perhaps you will get your revenge at some day in the future.

Although family members collected us from the airport, we did not spend any more time with them than necessary, cancelling scheduled visits, instead hunkering down for a couple of weeks in the Whangarei Central Holiday Park, plugged into power, with hot water and other facilities easily accessible.

Our jumping granddaughter

Eventually I ventured out to check on the welfare of my parents and the growth and development of our Whangarei grandchildren, but my husband remained in self-imposed quarantine. I had the pleasure of attending both swimming and equestrian classes with my gorgeous granddaughters, albeit as spectator and was duly impressed with their confidence and expertise.  I was able to assist my mother compile an interpretative panel for the Mangapurua track, or more specifically for the chimney marker of their once-upon-a-time home farm in that bush clad valley.

Who might head off to the circus

Last weekend we headed south again to Auckland, this time catching up with our youngest son and his family on the occasion of his youngest son’s baptism and early eighth birthday celebration. This in itself was fraught with controversy, neither of his parents supporting the religion or faith they were brought up in, however young Matthew was well supported by several grandparents, his god-parent uncle and compromising parents. His older brother viewed the whole ritual with disdain and was only appeased by the promise of a Big Mac on the way home. My husband pleaded allergies to church but did turn up for the barbeque. All in all, quite a drama. However in saying that, it was  a lovely opportunity to catch up with the family and our son’s more extended tribe. And that is something we do rejoice in;  all of our children’s partners have such warm, loving, caring “whanau”, especially since we spend most of our time chasing our own selfish touring dreams.

With my son and grandsons

The following day was something else entirely; a class reunion for the “girls” who started 3A1 at Hamilton Girls’ High School in 1967 and those that arrived to swell our numbers in the years that followed.  Having attended and enjoyed the Sonning boarding establishment reunion for the same year earlier this year, I was more open than I had been when there had been murmurings   in decades past for such gatherings. In fact it turned out to be just marvellous and our hostess, the Governor General, Patsy, made us most welcome in one of her official residences after we had all spent more than two hours at a nearby café becoming reacquainted. While one of the “girls” had remained in closer contact with me for the first ten years after leaving school, and two were fellow Sonning boarders, I had not set eyes on the rest since the end of 1970, yet strangely, once names were exchanged, recognised the teenage features in most of the warm and friendly faces. We have all gone on to be successful women in one way or another, and seem to have mostly beaten the cancer mortality odds. Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and look forward to another get together scheduled for Patsy’s last hurrah to her official post in 2021, this one to be in Wellington.

The GG & my old friend, Bronwen, at Government House

We had travelled down to Auckland early in the hope of sorting out our Sky television setup, something that is not really meant for motorhomers. Firstly we sought assistance from RSE, the outfit who installed our “box” in the van a few years ago, but they found there was nothing wrong with the box, simply that Sky had changed their system and this appeared incompatible with our card. This was all disastrous news for the television sportsman I live with, however by the end of the weekend, Sky provided us with an alternative idea, all of which is yet to be set in action. This is a situation of “watch this space”.  

While staying at the Ardmore NZMCA Park, we took the opportunity to visit Auckland’s Botanic Gardens, and while there was nowhere suitable for us to park within the grounds, we did manage to find a level spot within a kilometre of the gates outside a house up in the nearby residential area. I had noted a small campervan parked behind a wooden fence and thought they might be sympathetic to our need for suitable parking.

One of the permanent sculptures which did appeal

Our visit co-incided with a Sculpture Exhibition; this is a meandering trail about the easier accessible section of the gardens taking the visitor to see the eclectic collection of twenty or so entrants. Back in the lovely visitor centre, there is an opportunity to vote for your favourite sculpture; alas we were not impressed with any, or at least enough to imagine any of them in any garden we might have in the future. There were price tags on all of them, ranging from about $14,000 through to $50,000; my husband asked “Where do these people get off?!” Do I need to say more?

As did this

However the discovery route to these strange creations took us to corners of the park previously unexplored and suggested other routes, so we ended up wandering about the massive park for several hours and picnicked above one of the lovely lakes, deciding that the whole place was really under appreciated by the majority of Aucklanders whose rates finance the park.

The gardens are situated in Manurewa, South Auckland, cover 64 hectares and development was begun in 1973. Access is free although as I have mentioned, parking is limited. The visitor centre, also known as Huakaiwaka, is a truly splendid building, opened in 2005. Artwork is incorporated into the design and it alone is worth a visit. Here there is a café which looked inviting, but we had our sandwiches already prepared, an exhibition area cum shop with some excellent sculptures for those with money to throw around, and some very clean and modern toilets which are always welcome.

The entrance to Huakaiwaka

And speaking of gardens and sculptures, we had popped up to Whangarei’s Quarry Gardens one day to distract us from our sick beds to find a sculpture trail here as well, but  unlike that in Auckland, the organisers had their hands out for $5 a head. Had we come for this alone we might have felt more generous, but we were looking for a peaceful  gentle stroll through the sanctuary so postponed our visit for a less busy day.

We finally resettled ourselves back onto our section at Parua Bay, on “Jumbo” , the white elephant, and expect to spend the greater part of the next five months here with the occasional trip away. The tuis, kingfishers, wood pigeons and yellow-hammers are just some of the birds who have welcomed us and I have been delighted to wake up to the splendid view of the bay below and watch the gorgeous sunsets each evening. I have also enjoyed donning my version of shorts and light tops again; it seems as if we never did actually unpack the summer wardrobe whilst we were in the northern hemisphere, although I suspect that comment comes from a selective memory.

26 April 2017 - Whangarei Central Holiday Park, Northland

Our rental house all refreshed

Here we are still are, now in our seventh week, or is it eighth? The time has flown by and we have barely moved outside a small radius of the camp. We finally finished working on our rental property last Friday and shouted ourselves dinner at the local Café Divine, which has absolutely divine indian cuisine and not so divine surroundings. We do still have to return to the property daily to water the new lawns that are reluctant to establish themselves, but our agent is doing what she is paid to do and should have a new tenant settled in within a week or two; fingers and toes crossed. There is also the matter of the ripish feijoas, dropping to the ground which are better in my breakfast bowel, my mother’s preserving jars or our granddaughter’s ever eager stomachs. But today as I filled a supermarket bag, I realised that this might be the last I collected.

Out with my older son, Kit,  at the local Turkish Cafe

As I write this, my husband is polishing both the motorhome and car, ready for storage, and nursing the possibility of a cold, as you do if you are both male and about to embark upon a new adventure. Our suitcases are still empty, stashed in the Isuzu for now, but better there than in my parents’ garage loft where they have been since we returned in November last year. Suitcases are a burden to those living in cramped quarters, or quarters that would be considered cramped if they were shared with suitcases.

Walking the Town Basin with my friends Brenda and Basil

Autumn has finally arrived, we have had some gloriously clear days, cool mornings and sunshine that lift the temperatures to between 21 and 24 degrees from a cooler 10 degree start. One might have hoped to travel from these conditions to better in the early northern summer, but checking out the temperatures in the UK suggests otherwise. I expect to need my jacket, hat and gloves just as much as I did last year even though we are several weeks later into the season this time.

This time next week we will be ready to board our plane through to Qatar then on; we will have caught up with children, grandchildren, my parents and one sister, fare welling over meals, as we seem to have done all week; breakfast with this friend, morning tea with another, dinner with others, all forerunners to the social round we will have when we arrive in Suffolk, none of which is good for the figure.

So with that in mind I had better clear our debris from the camper seating to accommodate the family arriving later for takeaway pizzas, and consider that my next posting will be in the UK on my “Random Travel’s” blog. Bon voyage to us and to fellow travellers!

16 March 2017 - Whangarei Central Holiday Park, Northland

This morning I paid for a further two weeks accommodation here at this very central caravan park, a spot we have patronised from time to time over the past few years. There is always an element of “coming home” as we are welcomed back by managers Brad and Claire, and the many permanent residents with whom we are acquainted.

The lull before the next round of travel further afield has been rudely interrupted by work; yes, that activity we have mostly avoided with success over the past six or so years. And this is real work, hard physical work, to which we are unaccustomed. Our one remaining rental property demands our attention, however I should be grateful that we were able to shift the squatters out with greater ease than expected. It seems that even squatters are accorded the same rights as legal tenants, which further emphasises that landlords are a hard-done-by lot, despite the bad rap they are given by the media.

We were left with a house-lot of furniture, little of which was collected in the extended period of grace we offered, and rubbish, all of which filled a nine cubic metre jumbo bin. Cigarette burns across the vinyl, years of splattered fat throughout the kitchen, carpet so ridden with spills that it had to be torn up, the garden overgrown with rampant feijoa and grape vines, and a fast growing litter of kittens who had to be re-housed. I could go on and on and on, but will not except to say that my very practical and talented husband has once more stepped up to the plate and as I write this is preparing walls for repainting while the plumber does his preparation for the extensive plumbing fittings we are installing. The floors in the plumbed areas have all had to be torn up and rebuilt, and the walls in part re-gibbed. Yesterday my efforts were limited to assisting with moving the heavy construction stuff up into the house. My strength is abysmal, so poor that I was guilty of causing one sheet of gib to break. I am best left out of all this, although will no doubt be required to move these same sheets into position when The Carpenter, my husband, is ready for them.

We have been on the job for almost three weeks now, although during that taken time out to attend the anticipated wedding which was, as most weddings, just beautiful; the weather gods, the bride’s exceptional organisational skills and the tireless efforts of her team of friends and parents must be given all credit.

Intrepid or crazy tourist campers

The following week saw us head down to the Waikato for my boarding school hostel reunion, and again the weather stayed with us. We stayed at the Classic Car Museum in Hamilton which opens its car park to fully self-contained campers, not just members of the NZMCA. While there is a water tap in a rather obscure spot, the facilities are limited to those within the café, which is obviously closed during the night. We were quite shocked to find a roof camper parked up beside us one morning, with little or no other facilities, then even more shocked to see a young couple and baby emerge from the canvas. To their credit they did go in and spend an inordinate amount of time at the café, more than the use of the bathroom facilities would demand, so one can only presume that their spend made their stay more profitable to the museum than ours was. 

We four were the boarders of A1

Initial reunion at Sonning Hostel, now a carpark

And as for the reunion which I had been both looking forward to and dreading; this turned out to be a wonderful success, all credit to the ‘girls’ who spent so much of their time organising the event. This eclectic group of women, all approaching their mid-sixties with little in common but having lived their childhoods in isolated rural parts that required moving away from home to attend high school, embraced each other with warmth and laughter and there was no need to engage in  quizzes which were organised as awkward-silence-fillers; there was absolutely no silence to fill!  

Personally I attended the luncheon, the river cruise and the dinner, but left the Sunday activities to those others who stayed on, some of whom attended the church where we had once had to walk to in crocodile fashion, dressed immaculately in our Sunday dresses, panama hats, gloves and blazers, then sit before the congregation in the choir stalls where we were least able to escape notice. 

Instead we headed across to the Bay of Plenty to catch up with Larissa and her family, staying at our regular spot at the Waihi Beach RSA. Here again the weather was with us and we took full advantage of the east coast sun. We lunched at the Surf Shack, where our two teenage grandchildren were working. While they slaved away over sink and tables, we enjoyed huge platters of gourmet delight, enough to feed an army which we managed to consume without such help.

Later when the children were free of their weekend work, we all headed out into the Tauranga Harbour in the family’s little motor boat, settling into a secluded little bay. We paddled our legs in the fish filled saltwater while watching young Jackson and his mother take wild rides on a sea-biscuit and admiring India exhibit her growing skill on skiis. We would not be enticed into the water ourselves, even though we had secreted our togs into the bottom of our bags. I was a little tempted but then wondered how I would dry them out in the motorhome; a poor excuse I know.

Sea-biscuiting grandson

The following day with everyone returned to work and school, we headed north once more, now with the trailer which had been holidaying at the beach, and swung by our son’s place in West Auckland to collect our lawnmower, all in readiness for the task ahead of us on the southern edge of Whangarei.

Since then, the North Island has seen a deluge of weather; flooding, slips and other storm damage particularly throughout Northland, the south eastern reaches of Auckland and Coromandel. Fortunately for us and ours, there has been no residual damage. In fact my daughter-in-law sent through photos of the two city grandsons playing in surface road flooding. There it was a novelty, just miles away it was a catastrophe; such is the random nature of weather events. 

For me personally, despite the hard grind tales at the beginning of this post, I have had down time in which to catch up with friends and family, some of the former not seen for some years. The weeks ahead will give me opportunity to fill in the gaps of time and friendship, so long as I apply myself to the priorities: being available to gopher for The Handyman and see that he is fed well and in a timely manner, that his clothes are washed and his slippers warmed; in essence I have only to play the perfect wife.

So you see there has been little news by way of travel adventures to interest anyone but ourselves, however I did think I should check in. We are almost one month from our departure, and with such time pressure, the weeks will fly. We have yet to figure out how we will get ourselves from motorhome storage spot to the international airport, but solutions to this and other minor matters will evolve, as always.