Warren and I left Rotorua on Christmas Eve 2015 to begin our 2016 NZ travel adventure around NZ in our fifth wheel motor home. We have now been on the road for almost five months and its taken me till now to venture into the world of blogging. I must be super relaxed! The good news is we are still having fun and haven't murdered each other yet, even though daylight saving is long gone and we are now dealing with longer and cooler nights.
I intend the blog to be more about my reflections on our lifestyle on the road and the amazing people we meet, than the places we go, although some of that too. Lots of people tell us they would like to do this 'some day' but that 'some day' can be elusive and I wonder how many will really do it. Like most adventures, it wasn't easy to do. In fact it was quite stressful spending money on our big rig and a little bit scary giving up our familiar lives, work and activities in Rotorua, but since life is speeding by at an alarming rate we must go for our dreams while we are still able.That's my view anyway.
There have been some challenges; first giving up our respective part-time jobs and our comfy home and garden. We've also had a break in, which left us minus Warren's guitar and my lap top plus a broken door which took time to get fixed and held us up a bit, and several mechanical problems - to be expected when you buy an older vehicle I guess.
Here's a bit of a round up of our adventures to date.
We have moved slower than I anticipated, taking time to visit family along the way. We initially headed north as far as Waipu, spending a few days with Chris and Kirstie, their friends and kids at the Uretiti DOC camp just before New Year, then parked up near Dayle and Cat's place. During that time we got to spend some time with the kids and explored Waipu Cove and the lovely beaches around the Mangawhai Heads area. Despite living in Northland for 20 years the area was new to me! After a great time at the Auckland Folk Festival we began moving south and attended the NZMCA (New Zealand Motor Caravan Association) 60th birthday rally at Levin. This was followed by several weeks around Kapiti Coast in March, taking advantage of free camping where possible in Waikanae and Ngati Toa Domain so as to spend as much time as possible with my mum, Pat who had her 95th birthday on 11 April. We celebrated the occasion with a lovely party at the Fisherman's Table restaurant followed by desert and drinkies Chris and Heather's place. There was a great family turn out including Dayle and Chris and Tracey and Freja who made the trip from Waipu Auckland and Hamilton, and others came long distances too.
Later in April we motored to Ngawi and Cape Palliser, the southern most point in the North Island. It is barren but spectacular country looking out over the wild seas of Cook Straight. We climbed up to the lighthouse at Cape Palliser and clambered around the rocks to see several colonies of seals, before carrying on to the Wairarapa and Masterton where we stayed with
Warren's sister Anne. Then we slowly made our way north via Napier and Taupo back to good ole Rotorua where we always end up spending at least a week at the very convenient NZMCA park at Ngongataha. Rotorua is so familiar and easy to get bits and pieces done. It is also nice to catch up with a few friends there.
We have discovered the wonderful Paeroa RV Centre too where a great community of long term busers live. They are so friendly and keep it all very clean. Paeroa is at the end of the stunning Karangahake Gorge, a big Gold Mining area in the 1800s which runs between Waipu and Paeroa and is part of the Hauraki cycle trail which goes through to Thames. Paeroa is a small town, very handily situated about an hour and a half south of Auckland, 70 kms from Hamilton and close to the Coromandel. We have had such an amazingly fine and warm autumn that we decided to make the most of the weather and take a short trip up the Coromandel. We spent one night at Pauanui and one at Tairua which we loved. We hadn't been to Tairua for about 15 years (crazy as it is so close to Rotorua and Auckland) and found that though it has grown a bit, the place is as beautiful as ever. From our parking place beside several other vans, we could look out over the estuary, with the beach just a short walk away. There were reports of a severe storm in the South Island which was supposed to be moving north. Since we didn't want to risk driving over the hills in the wet we decided not to stop in Whitianga but to move on to Coromandel where we ended up staying for three nights. Unfortunately while navigating a tight bend on one of those legendary Coro hills, a bloke in 4 wheel drive and trailer cut Warren off and ripped off our front our bumper, also breaking a light. He didn't even stop to say sorry! Hence we spent another five days in Paeroa where Warren finally managed to track down a second hand part.
We are lucky to be able to stay at the Hare Krisna farm in Kumeu where we had a couple of days with Karana and Dharma and kids They always make us so welcome there.
We have at last reached Waipu in the winterless north, not that winter has struck us at all yet. We have an excellent parking spot at the Caledonian Park with power and water - cheap as and ideal for this time of year. We are close to Dayle and Cat and practically on site to watch Harrison's rugby practice and Karate.
