Kerikeri for a break

 

This morning after a leisurely breakfast I headed south along SH 10 from the Mangonui Fire Station where I had spent the night.

I had no idea where I wanted to go except I was slowly heading back towards Whangarei and then to Auckland where I have to be for Monday January 20th.

So I meandered around peeking into places that I hadn’t been before like Hihi, which is a pleasant little village, where I stopped for a quick break and then moved on through to Taupo Bay.

On the way who should I see coming towards me but “Bula Tau” so we flashed our lights waved and laughed as they headed out and I headed in!

It was a lovely trip in quite slow as there was a 50km speed restriction due to resealing for most of the 12km. The vista at the end of the road was wonderful.

I parked up facing the beach and decided to go for a paddle and fish.

Had a lovely paddle but again no luck with the fishing, lost a couple of softbaits to what I found out later were leatherjackets! I had forgotten how nasty they were. You need a tiny hook to get them!

Anyway on my return I was met by a young couple who were intently eyeing the back of ‘The Fredrock Cafe’. I just mentioned as I came up to the bus dragging the kayak that the overhand allowed for a walk around bed. Oh came the reply is this yours, we are keen to have a look.

So it was a guided tour for a young mum and dad and the kids. They were fascinated as they were keen to have a go at motor-homing.

After quite a chat another couple wandered up, saying that they had seen me turning around at the reserve at Hihi earlier that morning and again were interesting in buying a motorhome, so another tour of the bus took place.

I am becoming the consummate sales rep for motor-homing!

So then I washed down the kayak (after being told as I unreeled the hose from the front of the bus that I was now showing off!) and then gave a demo of the kayak loader for the original couple. He actually grabbed a handle and helped and it was so easy with two.

So after thanks and an offer to stay on the lawn of their batch at Tauranga Bay if I was interested, I headed back out to SH 10.

At this point I was starting to feel hungry and realised that it was 2.30pm and so I realised that I was not that far from Kerikeri, so I rang my Aunty Margaret and Uncle Geoff (my father’s youngest brother) and asked if I could come visit, so dialled the address into the GPS and headed off.

On arrival we sat and chatted and they invited me to stay for a couple of days so I manoeuvred the bus around the back of the house. Unfortunately the maple tree was closer than I thought, so now have a bit of a scratch along the side of the bus! Oh well, a cut and polish should remove it.

So I will be here, doing washing, cleaning the dust out and generally catching up on bits and pieces here for a couple of days.

What is great is that my Uncle Geoff hasn’t changed one bit. Still as nutty as a fruit cake, full of silly useless information and fun stuff.

I will see how long I last here!

Thanks to Jenny and Robin from Romany Rambler for the suggestion of using Livewriter. I am trying it for this post and will see how it goes.

It is good to see that at least one other person that is not family is reading my blog!

Catch you all (all three of you) tomorrow!

952 meters straight up!

Well today was a great day, starting off with a trial run/first fit of the kayak loader and it went well. They carefully checked everything and it all fitted. It’s a lot shorter than I thought it would be.

 

Then I decided that I would do a wander up the ‘hill’ to the top of Mt Te Aroha and see the transmission tower close up.

Once the fitting was complete and I had got things ready, I left the domain at 11.15.

Well the track was bloody tough! We missed the Bald Spur lookout by about 7 minutes the other day! What a view from there. 

Then it was slog, slog, up and up and up, from there to the summit. It was stairs, climbs up roots and rocks and climbs and stairs. It was one heck of a climb.

I arrived at the summit at 1:30 and took some pictures

and headed off down the TV road for a while…. a long while and it was downhill ALL the way. And very steep in places and it went on…. 

Eventually I found the Tui Link track that headed back towards the starting point. Came across the Mayflower mine and had a look in, wish I had brought a torch.

On the way through the Tui Track I cam across a very strange occurrence, A grove with a whole stack of stone cairns...spooky

 There were also a number of creeks and crossings

Arrived back at the domain at 4pm after 17km walking, exhausted but proud of getting there and back!

Showered, did some washing as my walking clothes stank! And am now sitting writing this and sipping on a glass of vino, with my feet up.

Te Aroha is an amazing area, with lots of stuff to do. Some great shops and businesses and the thermal pools, some awesome walks and bike rides, road, rail trail and mountain bike.  You could happily spend a week here doing all the great things.

BTW the pile of dirt next to our overnight spot is a BMX track in the making. They are trying to get some basic jumps ready for the holidays.

I’m heading back to Cullen Engineering at 8am tomorrow for the final fitting!

Pasta, bacon and salad for dinner!

Kayak or Bust!

On Monday, I decided that I needed to get out and do something this week, after doing not very much last week.

So decided to head back over to Te Aroha and see how the kayak loader was progressing and do some walking and mountain biking while there. I decided that I needed to get this under way so I can start my Christmas trip.

Brenda and Roger agreed and on Monday afternoon after completing the “nana’s lemonade syrup” and the grape fruit rollups, we had lunch and headed off. On arrival I went and saw Mike and he told me that they were awaiting the laser cut main struts, which should be arriving overnight, then they needed to assemble the thing and then we would be fitting it on Thursday hopefully.

Once that was sorted we went to the domain and visited the iSite and gathered up a whole range of brochures and then headed over to Boyd Park, where we intended to spend the night and wandered around the wetlands track. A really nice 45 min wander through some interesting wetlands and came across some awesome plum trees with tiny but nice plums.

Lovely bacon, potato and egg pie for dinner!

Will post the recipe, it’s the Countdown one and really nice cold and hot!

Lovely quiet night and headed out in the morning for a quiet bike ride towards Paeroa. Brenda and Roger hadn't been there and I was interested to see how different it would be when I was not tired, hungry and thirsty. We parked by the old railway station and headed out early.

We had a good trip only travelling 17km towards Paeroa and then returning after a muesli bar and drink. Roger was feeling his bike seat by the time we got back to the buses and Brenda’s leg was starting to give her a bit of worry.

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, mainly because it was nicely overcast and a very light breeze was blowing keeping the temperature down and not having to grind into a headwind on the return.

We headed back to the domain and had some lunch. Brenda had found the Mokena Geyser and it spouts every 40 mins and runs best between 12 and 2pm, so after lunch we went up and waited for the geyser to do its thing. We waited for nearly 40 mins and just as I had a call from a budgeting colleague, yup you guessed it away it went.   So grabbing the camera and saying goodbye to Marlene I managed to get a couple of shots of the only soda geyser in the world.

Not sure whether it was worth the wait but at least I can now say I have seen the Mokena Geyser do its thing.

So after that bit of an anti-climax we headed up to the Wiarongamai Valley to have a quiet afternoon beside the bush.

Nice little afternoon and we decided to have dinner there as well, so it was beautifully peaceful, despite the number of people heading out for a walk.

We then headed back into town to set up for the evening in the car park behind the Te Aoha Library, where we were treated to the noises from the athletic meet happening across the way. Loads of young children competing in a full range of athletics and again a lovely peaceful night until 5am when two guys arrived to mow the grass in the nearby carpark!

So an early start to the day, but I managed to doze again but when someone arriving at work slammed their car door, I was wide awake and not that happy about it!

So we headed off to have a bit of a walk , Brenda saying that she would go as far as her leg would carry her!

We headed up to the Bald Spur Lookout and managed to get as far as Whakapipi Lookout.

I wandered up the track a little to see if we had arrived at the right place but didn't seem to be anything further up except the Te Aroha mast so we headed back down. Looking at the map, we missed Bald Spur by about 15 mins! Not to worry, it was still a nice walk up the hill.

On our return Brenda and Roger headed home and I decided to get the gas bottle filled and head off to have a bit of a mountain bike blat. Did about 45 mins and then headed back.

I got a call from Mike about the kayak loader and he invited me over to see the progress to date and we would have a look at how things would go from here.

So I wandered over to see and it looks great, bit of work still to be done, but its going to look great and work well!

Mike then had a look at the bus and started to worry about the measurements so we got out the ladder and re-measured some and yup we had it right, but it was going to be a tight fit with all the stuff on the roof of the bus, indicator lights, vents and solar panels!

Headed back to Boyd Park and then got a call from Mike, asking me to come in at 9am tomorrow so that they could at least ensure that the measurements were right!

Damn, there goes my walk all the way up to the top of the hill to the transmitter mast! Ah well, maybe tomorrow afternoon.

So due to lack of internet connection this is now posted today! My 3G wireless router works! So I am now on wireless throughout the bus on 3G! Works on all my devices. Must now keep my eyes pealed for cheap data cards.