Monthly Archives: March 2013

Dearne’s Toy

As BeachHop weekend comes to a close we can only sit back and wonder how we survived the five days. The weather was warm and brilliantly fine each day and we heard that the weekend was attended by some 80,000 people.

For Rod and I our weekend started last Tuesday with rock and roll night. We then assisted the festival organisers with the setting up of trade shows and traffic control on Wednesday and Friday. The remainder of the weekend was ours to play. Our house guests arrived on the Thursday and on Friday afternoon to get the weekend started for them we had them in town taking part in rock and roll lessons.

There were eight or so venues around the town with each venue having its own band and bar facility so overcrowding was never really an issue. The classic cars, hot rods and motorcycles were fantastic.  There were several vehicle parades over the five days so everyone had ample opportunity to get up close to their favourite entry.

We tried to ascertain how much money we thought was tied up in the vehicles cruising around town.  We made a conservative guess of $40M to $50M but I think we were probably way off the mark. It would have been more than that. I had to take Rod’s Visa card off him over the weekend just to ensure no unapproved purchases were made!!

L to R rear: Dearne, Sharon, Barry
L to R front: Len, Craig

However in saying that I would be more than happy if he decided to sell the Harley and get onto four wheels. I always get a little nervous when he’s been gone too long.

Our visitors all left at various time today and we are now sitting back and enjoying the last of the weekend. Thanks guys to coming to our town and supporting the main event for the year.  Without visitors the ‘Hop’ would not happen.

We are away to Melbourne on Thursday to attend the ‘Long Time No Sea’ Navy Reunion over Easter.  There are quite a few of us going over from New Zealand and we are both looking forward to catching up with everyone over there.  I will let you know how it goes.

For more photographs of the weekend, click HERE

We had only been home a week and the feet started itching again. We are finding it hard to stop exploring when we are enjoying it so much.

Raglan Harbour

We decided to head away to Raglan for the weekend. Situated on the West Coast of New Zealand’s North Island, Raglan is just a 45-minute drive west of Hamilton or about three hours from Whangamata.  Raglan is fast becoming a top holiday destination both for New Zealanders and international visitors.Raglan is a surfing mecca for wave riders, with three world-class point breaks. Manu Bay is said to offer the longest left hand rides on the planet and featured in Bruce Brown’s 1964 classic surf film The Endless Summer. Further along the coastline sit the breaks of Whale Bay and Indicators. For the less experienced head to Ngaranui Beach. I was hoping to get a bit of long line fishing in here over the weekend but unfortunately the wind worked against me.

Raglan Hotel

Raglan is also the home to a large number of talented and creative artists – right up Dearne’s tree – original art, photography, pottery, traditional weaving, stone carving and jewellery to pass away a pleasant afternoon. We wandered into town this morning for a coffee then I left her to it for the day.If the weather forecasters have got it correct, we are in for rain tomorrow. Based on their advice we are all backed up tonight ready for the dumping should it arrive!!!!

We intend getting away early in the morning and head back home for BeachHop week. Dearne and I have a bigger involvement this year. We have ‘rock and roll’ night on Tuesday night at the local club- we only know six r’and r’ steps so we will do them to death over the weekend. On Wednesday we are manning the Sony (a Beach Hop sponsor) stand in Waihi, Thursday most of our house guests arrive for the weekend and Friday we are manning the Sony stand again in Onemana. When we are finished at Onemana its kick back and enjoy the weekend’s entertainment. People ask me how I fill my day in ‘retirement’ – my response always – “by enjoying myself”.

We will update the blog with a few shots after Beach Hop.

Our journey to the sunny Far North is now completed and we are back at home in Whangamata. The last few days of our trip have been quite busy one way or another. We spent the Wednesday and Thursday nights parked up at the Takapuna Motorcamp. We were both quite busy during each of the days and we ‘entertained’ on both evenings. It was great catching up with friends and family over the two days.

On Friday we headed off down to Hamilton to visit our Whangamata neighbour who is currently in hospital after taking a tumble down their internal stairs. A couple of leg fractures and a few skin grafts later the incident has forced a whole change of lifestyle on the couple.  They have to sell their home and move to a single level property if they wish to remain independent.

From left: Dale, Caleb, Dearne

While we were in Hamilton we uplifted grandson #4 (Caleb) and have him with us for the next few days. We decided to spend last night at the hot pools at Omokoroa in the Bay of Plenty. It makes babysitting just that wee bit easier.  Dale Leggett (a friend who served in the Navy with us), joined us for 5 o’clockers so overall we had a very pleasant evening.

We left Omokoroa at about 10am this morning and arrived back home mid afternoon today (Saturday).

Over all we have had a brilliant seven weeks on the road. The Far North has some stunning country and bar none, we found all the people we met on our journey to be most helpful, friendly and in many cases, most generous (except for that nutter at Kerikeri – Gibby’s Place). If you ever get the opportunity to travel to the Far North, do not put it off – it’s a great trip.

So where to from here?  We are heading to Raglan next weekend to do a bit of West Coast fishing then back home on Sunday.  The following weekend we will have a full house for the 2013 Beach Hop. On Easter Weekend we are away to Melbourne to the Navy Reunion. Busy, busy!!

We will keep the blog updated as we travel around.

From left: Christian, Hunter, Dearne, Jeshua, Rod

We made a successful return to Whananaki yesterday (Plan B) and had a great night with the whanau. The grandkids were super glad to see us especially knowing we were all staying together overnight.  The kids from left to right are Christian (grandson #5), Hunter (grandson #2) and Jeshua (grandson #1).

Those who know Whananaki will know that the estuary itself is quite tidal and the tide was out yesterday afternoon when we arrived.  The kids were a bit disappointed with the ‘no water’ situation however we really lucked in as the place where we were staying had a great pool complex. It kept the kids amused for much of the remainder of the day (and this morning).

We headed away from Whananaki at 10am this morning and are back on Plan A. We made a small detour on the way down through to Waipu Cove to visit Robert and Kathy Keen. Both Robert and Kathy worked with Rod in his EAP Services days. It was great catching up with them at their beautiful holiday home.

We are now settled in at Martins Bay and plan to be here until Tuesday.

So far this trip we have never had a travel plan as we have just stopped when we felt like it. However on our journey home we have one or two dates and times that we need to stick to consequently we have a Plan A.

The first stop in Plan A was supposed to be last night at Te Arai Point – Mangawhai Forest Camp. What a nightmare journey!  The 12km road to the camp from the main road was gravel, rock hard, corrugated and to make it worse, dust for Africa.  I doubt that the road had seen any road works since the first canoe’s arrival. When we arrived in at the camp it looked more like a dump site than a camp. After a quick look around the ‘boss’ made an immediate decision that we were ‘out of there’ and we then had to suffer ‘that road’ again on the return journey to the main road. The van, driver, passenger and its contents survived journey albeit the van’s exterior colour was now a dirty brown, the van contents were all over the floor and the salad was now premixed in the refrigerator.

By this time it was getting late in the day and the closest stopover was about 7km away at Mangawhai. We were lucky that our ‘lodgings’ in Mangawhai are on bore water so we were able to give the van a good hosing down and clean inside. We have decided to stay here for two nights and spend a bit of time biking around.

As part of our Plan A, we were going to stay at Matakana for a two nights but we received a call yesterday from daughter #2 saying that they are travelling north to Whananaki to look at a section on Saturday.  Consequently we have decided to leave here early tomorrow morning, spend an hour or so at Matakana markets then head back up to north to Whananaki to meet up with Renee, Michelle and the grandkids for a night. It should be good for one or two Pino Gris and a few R & C’s.

We will then be back to our original Plan A and head to Martins Bay on Sunday or Monday.  In our new lifestyle, flexibility is the key.