Lunch with friends

A lovely start to the day on Saturday, leaving from Waikanae Beach, I paused in Waikanae at the butcher, where I picked up a lovely assortment of sausages and a very nice looking roast for one. I asked him for a small roast of beef and he brought out a great big one and asked how big and then sliced me off a lovely piece, just the right size. I am looking forward to having a roast dinner soon.

So from there I headed northwards and turned left a couple of times. The first was Te Horo where I headed out to the beach for a look.

		Te Horo Beach VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

A lovely spot with an interesting rocky beach with a river flowing outwards.

From there it was back out to the highway and then left again towards Kuku Beach. At the end of the road is a lovely carpark and a very interesting beach. The area is Maori land and they have allowed access and have created a lovely area.

		Kuku Beach VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The wind was quite severe here so I didn’t go too far towards the sea. Certainly a place to explore further next time.

From there it was through to Levin for lunch with Robin and Jenny the Romany Ramblers whom I have talked about often. Jenny had created an awesome lunch of French Onion soup with French Bread croutons with cheese, followed by sausage rolls and lemon muffins.

I arrived at 11am and left about 3:30pm after chatting and trying to solve the issues of the world. Their little ‘village’ is a great little area and I met a couple of their neighbours who also have motorhomes, so a grand tour of the Fredrock Cafe was undertaken and comments about how each and every motorhome was set up differently and how neat it was to do the grand tours and get ideas for improvements and alterations. Thanks to Jenny for the lovely lunch and after a 32 point turn around I left Levin and headed north to a new POP in Foxton for the night. I was the second name in the book. My hosts Wendy and Brian are long term motorhomers and have a great POP set up. They are lovely people and are looking forward to their next three weeks on the road in October. My thanks to them for their POP, it is not in the book, but is on the website, site ID 9522 called DIDYOUBRINGYOURGROGALONG.

After a lovely afternoon cuppa with Wendy and Brian, I headed out to the bus and had a lovely quiet night.

After bidding Wendy adieu, I headed off towards Palmerston North and set up at Pat and Peter’s. They are expecting the roofing guys Monday or Tuesday to come and reroof their house, garage and carport over the next few days so I am parked on the lawn out of the way. I offered to park out on the street and got a clip around the ear from Pat for my troubles.

After doing some washing I was given Lee Child’s latest Jack Reacher novel, Personal. An interesting and fun read if you enjoy Jack Reacher, it was up to his normal high standard. I missed the wry humour that is written in the book when I watched the movie. Somehow the movie didn’t really do it for me, not just because the lead character was played by completely the wrong actor, but it was Hollywood’ised and failed to reach my rather high expectations. After reading such a well written and very descriptive series of novels, you end up with some pretty vivid images and the movie came nowhere near.

For those of you who are interested in my flyscreens on the front door, the Warehouse is currently advertising magnetic flyscreens on the radio. I am heading to get a new pair tomorrow so will let you know how good they seem. Mine are starting to get a bit battered around.

I have a rather full week ahead, helping Pat and Peter in various ways and getting ready for my workshop on Friday so am looking forward to sitting still for the rest of the week and then a run through to Auckland to get there by Tuesday for my surgery (minor) on Wednesday.

Safe travels everyone.