After 8 years of being part of a very successful boat partnership it was time for us to become landlubbers, buy a motorhome and do some exploring of this beautiful country of ours. Perhaps even suss out where we wanted to retire. We looked for ages to find what we wanted, something that ticked all the boxes that we had created as we searched. It had to be a manual, it needed to have a big, diesel engine, we wanted to feel like we had as much space as we did on the boat and it had to be within our budget. We wanted a full oven, lots of storage and we wanted a decent size fridge, maybe even with a freezer. Not too many kms on the clock, not too many decals on the sides and not too many zeros in the price. We're not fussy, we just know what we like. Although we live in Auckland it only took us a wee trip to New Plymouth to find the perfect wagon that we affectionally call The Beast.
Once we got it back to Auckland we set about REALLY making it our own. The first thing we had to do was kit out the inside. It was like setting up house again except everything we bought we had to consider how much it weighed - thank goodness for Briscoes! We decided to get a new custom made mattress, have the electrics checked out, Dave had to make a table, we needed a bike rack, the bikes to go on it and we wanted an inflatable boat and outboard. Hey, that wasn't a long list was it? We had joined the New Zealand Motor-Caravan Association as soon as we started looking for a motorhome so at least that check box was already ticked.
The Campervan show at Mystery Creek helped with a few of these items and our good friends Matt and Marissa gave us the bikes!! Although the school holidays would have been the ideal time for us to have our first adventure we already had a holiday in Australia booked so we had to wait a little longer before we got an opportunity to try out our newly pimped ride.
Luckily Labour weekend came along. We didn't really want to flee Auckland with the throngs of people who crowd the motorways at the start of long weekends and anyway, we had my nephew and his partner stopping over with us for one night on their way from Dunedin to Bali so SATURDAY 20 OCTOBER 2018 became the date of our maiden voyage in The Beast.
After a quick trip out to Auckland Airport to get the Dunedin-ites on their way to Bali we headed south. The motorway was a little congested but not too scary. Our intention was to head to Ray's Rest between Kaiaua and Miranda. Apparently it is a bit of a "right of passage" for new motorhome owners - darn, and we thought we were being original.
We arrived just before lunch but there were still beach front sites available so we parked and toasted our first journey. The Beast had performed beautifully on the trip down.
As the tide was fully in and the depth of the water was only about knee deep for ages we decided we would still have a little trip in the boat. After all, if we fell out we could walk back in. Once the new Parsuns engine was getting enough fuel we took the new vessel for its maiden voyage. Ever hopeful we had our fishing rods with us but the chances of us catching anything when we could still see our bait were nil so it was just as well we had steak in the fridge. Still this little taster in the inflatable went well and helped us see the fun we would be having in it come Christmas, once we had 'run' the engine in and when we actually had our life jackets with us.
Next on the agenda was definitely dinner and time to check out the new Baby Weber. Have to say - it was brilliant. Dave actually followed the instructions - which means he had actually read the instructions - and the steak was perfect. The fridge had also chilled the wine perfectly so another appliance got the tick of approval.
Having chilled down a bit it was time to try the wee shower. For such a tiny space, a tiny shower nozzle and a tiny hot water cylinder it was a surprisingly pleasing experience. So....warm, clean, full and pleasantly tired we settled down to a game of Euchre and in the absence of chocolate, a generous glass of Baileys before hitting the sack. To mention how the card game panned out would upset Dave too much so I won't even bother bringing that up.
SUNDAY 21 OCTOBER 2018
After a brilliant nights sleep on a VERY comfortable mattress we decided to bike to Kaiaua before brekky. A pleasant, uneventful trip but we realised we should always take our wallets with us when we go for a bike ride as there was a market there and all we could was look. We could have bought some butter too which would have helped with breakfast.
After a cooked breakfast we chilled a bit with a walk along the beach and some reading/line learning before battening down the hatches and driving for a soak in the hot pools at Miranda. Although it was a long weekend and the carpark was chocca the pools were a lot more relaxing than we expected. The pool temp was brilliant and very soothing for those muscles that had been rudely awakened by the bike ride.
Wanting to avoid the holiday weekend traffic we headed back to Auckland, patting ourselves on the back as the motorway was very light. We had already discovered thanks to the NZMCA App that there was a dump station very close to where we live in Te Atatu South so after a quick empty out there we arrived home VERY pleased with the motorhome we had purchased and the refinements we had made to it. With a very small list of things we wanted to add or change we pronounced our maiden voyage a success.
PS - The next day we got up early and headed down to the Taikata Water Ski Club with the Takacat and our lifejackets so we could continue with the running in of the engine regime and ran into this little 3 metre sea leopard. She didn't like sharing and she wasn't very friendly AND she had a mouthful of VERY sharp looking teeth!!
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