Exploring Close to Auckland

FRIDAY 26 OCTOBER 2018
Left Auckland on the Friday night straight after work to try and get two nights in the motorhome and still be home in time for my rehearsal on the Sunday.  Thankfully our fab neighbour, Francis, was going to supply some cuddles (and dinner on Saturday night) for Poppy. Leaving Auckland and heading north at 5:30 pm we wondered how  the traffic would be but apart from experiencing the "Phenomenon" at Silverdale that Jane had mentioned it was pretty plain sailing.

We were heading to Whangateau Holiday Park  between Matakana and Leigh and we arrived at about 6:45 pm. Not bad!

After ejecting the people who had accidently parked on our site Dave set about creating a smoked chicken pasta dish to die for. After dinner, having the luxury of staying in a motor camp, we went and checked out the showers.

Just to digress slightly, we are very impressed with this motor camp. Nice level sites, the facilities have obviously been recently modernised and are well designed, well maintained and excellent quality. Considering how close it is to Auckland we will definitely be back. Oh that's right, we have booked in here for three nights at Christmas so we really will definitely be back.

Sooo back in the motor home warm and clean, it was time for Euchre - with chocolate this time - and a well deserved glass of wine.

The Euchre tournament will continue tomorrow with the score at the end of play being one all - it's anyone's game at this stage!

SATURDAY 27 OCTOBER 29 18
After another brilliant nights sleep (that mattress was such an investment) we headed straight in to Matakana. We didn't even make coffee, we just wanted to get in there and get a decent park for The Beast as we knew that the Matakana Market attracts a lot of people.

I love it when a plan comes together cos we got a brilliant park, grabbed a coffee and headed to the market. There is nothing quite like the atmosphere of a market and when you enter and hear the strains of Bluegrass/country/jazzy music emanating you know it is going to be a great experience. Dave headed straight for the Steak and Blue Cheese pie stall and I paused to watch the banjo player...then I realised I knew him and the bass player!! Who knew that the parents of one of our current (and past students) played in a band called The Pipis??? We ate our way around the markets, as you do, and smugly congratulated ourselves for contributing so generously to the local economy!

So loaded with fresh local produce, local liquor, local seafood and a big slab of local beef we headed back to Whangateau. Not sure where the afternoon went, we explored the camp, the beach, spoke to James in Perth and, once the tide had gone out, we walked out to the wee island and explored that.

As we sat reading and typing the predicted rain hit and we were thankful for our cosy motor home. The Baby Weber meant that we could still stick with our plan to bar-b-que the hunk of local beef even in the rain and we sipped our Puhoi gin while we waited.

The dinner was superb, the hunk of local scotch fillet was suberb, the local produce was superb and the heavy rain continued. We were on a very level site and unfortunately some rain started to pool on our roof. If we had stopped and thought a little and moved the motorhome or even driven on to the wheel chocks we might have avoided a slightly worrying night but, hey, we are new to all this. So instead we busted out a bowl or two to catch the drips and then turned our attentions to the decider Euchre match. The cards defintely fell in Dave's favour, which is what I would say. Dave, of course, would say it was all skill.

The rain continued to fall very heavily so we fell asleep to the rythmic plunk plunk of water finding the appropriately placed bowl.

SUNDAY 28 OCTOBER 2018
We woke to beautiful sunshine and no rain and it was at this point we thought about moving the motorhome - doh! With Dave's brain whirring on what he was going to have to do to deal with the 'pooling' problem we took our coffees out to the rocks to gaze at the sea. Check out the 360 by clicking here: https://fyu.se/v/kf464zlvh0

Needing to get back to Auckland we set off nice and early but thought we would check out Leigh first so turning right out of the campground we headed to Leigh Harbour. It was an easy drive and great to be able to have a wander around on a sleepy Sunday morning. Knowing the road down to the wharf was a bit hairy we left The Beast at the top and walked down to check out the harbour. What an idyllic place.

After a quick coffee we were back on the road. As we headed toward Matakana we saw the signs toward Tawharanui Regional Park and decided to check that out as well. It had been many many years since we had visited this part of New Zealand and I was very grateful to find that the road had been completely sealed. It was further than we remembered to get to the coast and while the road is pretty twisty it wasn't that scary. It certainly looks like a beautiful place to stay over and it is now definitely on our list of "Places-to-go-that-are-spitting-distance-from-Auckland"

Dave appreciated the opportunity to see how The Beast performed on this type of road and was pleased with how it handled.

With my rehearsal looming it was time to just head straight back to Auckland. For our second trip away we had learnt a few more things about the motorhome and found a few more places that we were keen to visit. While the wee leak is a pain it has given Dave a little project to work on and it distracted me enough for Dave to be able to reign supreme at Euchre (did you see what I did there??)