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.
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