Birds and wind

 The wild flowers that we planted when we were here last time have all come on again. Tony said he had asked Matea (She is the track manager) not to spray around it and she didn’t. Below is a goldfinch and a chaffinch which are both feeding off of the cornflower seeds. They are rather neat to watch from the kitchen window. In the 5th wheeler, my kitchen window looked out into the awning, so it's quite a treat to have a view instead.

Goldfinch

Chaffinch

We had a few showers during the week but it hasn’t been cold. It wasn’t a lot of rain and I doubt it has been a lot of use to the farmers.

We had a quiet day on Sunday when Eddie discovered old movies on Youtube, so we watched an old war movie called Hell boats. It was based on a true story about the Allies destroying a German base in Sicily where they stored glider bombs. It wasn’t too bad even though all the actors had impossible tans and the love story was a bit of a non event.

We were rudely awakened Sunday night just after midnight by a loud bang. We both thought that the awning had broken again, but the roof hatch in the living area had blown off. It had gotten windy in the night. We leave the hatches open a little at night when it is hot. If it had been windy when we went to bed, we would have shut them. (probably). Anyhow it was still in one piece on the ground,  which was a miracle as it is only made of perspex. Luckily it didn’t blow the other way and damage the solar panels. The bedroom one stayed on, so another bonus. Another one is on order. Eddie was able to put it back on and to make sure it stays in place, he has used duct tape to hold it secure.

Isn’t life exciting?

A journey to Tauhereknikau.

 We have had a lovely social time over the past few days in Matamata. We were quite the social bunnies. It's been nice to catch up with everyone.

On Monday we went to Taupo and stayed at the NZ motorcaravan association camp site. We planned to be there for 2 nights, but it didn't quite work out that way. There is no power there, so the refrigerator had to go on to the gas. It will go on the batteries, but it takes a lot out of them and you can only do it when it is sunny and definitely not all night. We turned it off over night and put it back on again first thing in the morning, which worked ok.

As a result, we came straight to Tauherenikau instead of spending more time in Taupo and a night in Napier.

The trip down was very stressful as the toyota had no power. We came up Mohaka hill at 20k. For those that don't know. It is a very long hill; we think 4 or 5 k long. We were overtaken by fully laden trucks. We were pleased there was a passing lane all the way up, otherwise it would have been even more stressful. We stopped for lunch in a layby and while I made the sandwiches, Eddie popped the bonnet and had a look. He found a vacuum tube had come off one end and was just lying on the engine. It had no clips on it to keep it on where it is supposed to be. Eddie did a bit of a MacGyver trick and used his plastic ties to keep it on. We traveled at a much better rate after that. Today we went and brought some proper clips to hold it on with.

We aren't really sure why it isn't going on gas, but it is a 16 year old fridge and I suppose things wear out. Eddie had a look online to see how much a new power board would be and they turned out to be about half the cost of a new fridge. They were all out of stock. We think they probably don't make them anymore for fridges as old as ours. It looks like a new one is on the cards.

All set up at Tauherenikau

Top of the Mohaka hill after the looong climb.

Opape to Matamata

 

We left Thornton about 11on Friday morning and got to Opape at 1: 30.

Eddie thought a different site to the one they gave us would be better, so we moved on to that one instead. It is sunnier, but we are under a big tree and the tv aerial can’t pick up a signal. Luckily we have the dongle now and we can watch via the wifi. Thank goodness for modern technology. We have been watching programmes we have seen advertised, but never watched. It was handy when we wanted to watch the last episode of a programme we have been watching too.

We enjoyed our time at Opape and will probably go back again one day. There were a couple of walks I wanted to do, but my leg isn't quite up to them yet.

A little social area on Opape Beach

We are at Matamata now and doing the social catch up with friends. Tomorrow Eddie is getting running lights on the toyota. Just a safety feature for towing.

Opape Beach

 We have had some lovely days this last week with a few showers to keep the dust down.

My leg is starting to feel a lot better. I was taking nurofen for a few days and I think that helped. It is feeling much better and I can walk on it more naturally now instead of limping. My shoulder is still bothering me a bit, but also not as bad as it was.

Eddie had to unblock a urinal one day this week. He got one unblocked and the next one blocked and then on to the 3rd one. He gave up then and put an out of order sign on it. We lead an exciting life ha ha.

Towards the end of the week, I think the weather man forgot that it was summer and sent the snow up on the Desert Rd. As a result the weather was a little cooler and we both had jerseys on for most of the day, which we haven't done for a while.

One evening, Louise had to go down to the jumping pillow and tell adults to get off when it was half way down. It has a notice to say keep off when it is deflating or inflating. Eddie goes down at 8: 30 just before it turns off to get the children off. You would think adults would know better.

There is a public toilet over the other side of the river for people to use, which caught fire on Monday. We could hear fireworks this morning and wondered what people were thinking when it was light. It turned out to be rubbish by the toilet that had fireworks in it, which caught fire somehow. The fire brigade came and put it out. It was lucky the grass around it didn’t catch fire.

We have one more day doing the cleaning here at Thornton and then we are going to Opape for 4 nights.

Sunset at Opape beach