Ready, Steady....Go

WEDNESDAY 5 FEBRUARY 2025

We did it! After six years of owning The Beast (my name for our motorhome) and rabbiting on about taking a year to explore New Zealand we have become the grey nomads we claimed to be. 

To get to this point where we are freedom camping at Lake Whakamaru near Kinleith, on the first day of our adventure has seemed quite a journey already starting with Dave retiring at the end of 2023. Well, I say retiring but he spent 2024 working his butt off, getting our home bulletproof for renting out and The Beast gussied up for our year long trip - oh and working two days a week at Albany Senior High School. (ASHS)

Early in 2024 we made contact with Elevate Property Group and started the ball rolling for renting out the house, they had been recommended to us and then we discovered that our Property Manager, Georgia Johnson, was an alumni from ASHS so we were very comfortable with our choice. Things started to feel real when the rental listing went up on Trade Me and even though the rental landscape had changed heaps since the beginning of the year Georgia found us our ideal tenants who were looking for a home, not a house and definitely not one of the terraced houses that have flooded the market.

That is when the work really started. Once James and Bec headed back to Perth we started packing up nearly 30 years of living in the same house, deciding what to keep, what to bin, what to give away and what was coming with us - it made my head hurt! After a brief hiatus of looking after Vincey before he went back to school we launched back into cleaning only just getting it finished in time to leave Auckland on 5 February 2025.

So, so much cleaning to do before we left

Thank you to all the friends and family who made time to catch up before we left Auckland.

Time for the adventure to start!

Our first stop was Kati Kati so we could catch up with Dave's folks and his brother's family. On arrival we discovered that we had lost the fridge vent somewhere on the way down the island so Dave made like MacGuyver and created one from a vent, a safety sign and some silicone.

Even without his workshop, Dave can still fix things.

Matt, Sandi and Alison were the consummate hosts and spoilt us with delicious food, an invigorating swim and a lovely coastal walk before we headed off with Dave doing the driving and navigation my responsibility.

THURSDAY 6 FEBRUARY 2025

The trip over the Kaimais was not a problem for The Beast, even though it is very chocca and apart from me missing the entrance to the Lake Whakamaru Reserve, it was uneventful. 

This freedom camping area is HUGE with room for hundreds of campers, motorhomes, caravans etc. and right on the shores of Lake Whakamaru. As we arrived on Waitangi Day it was fairly busy (an estimate of well over 100 campers) and there was still plenty of room for more. We had no difficulty finding a relatively flat site. It was pretty cool to see so many families taking advantage of the opportunity to camp for free and making good use of their water toys and the magnificent weather. There were not enough vault toilets for the amount of campers but they were well maintained and even had hot, free showers and campers are supposed to be self contained!! Well done to South Waikato District Council for providing this facility. 

We had decided we would stay two nights here just to unwind a little so we had a fairly relaxed afternoon which included a very refreshing swim. After our first dinner of the trip we went for an evening walk around the camp and settled in for an early night.

Lake Whakamaru Reserve

FRIDAY 7 FEBRUARY 2025

After a relatively peaceful night we decided to explore a little, starting with a walk along a Waikato Bike Trail which followed the lake edge. What a well maintained track. If we had been staying longer we definitely would have busted the bikes out but for today it was just pleasant enjoying the scenery and meandering amongst the pines. 

Exploring the Waikato Bike Trail on foot.

We met a lady on the track who explained that the track continued on the other side of the campground toward the Whakamaru Dam. As we had not realised that this lake was formed when they built this hydro electric dam in the 50s we set off to check it out. The track we were following had heaps of blackberry bushes on either side of it and while they were only tiny berries boy were they sweet. Needless to say, this walk took slightly longer with constant stops to gather the fruit.

Whakamaru Dam - more hydro-electricity from the Waikato River

The dam was pretty impressive and made me wonder where you would even begin to dam such a huge river, let alone do it back in the 50s!

Met Service had put out a thunderstorm warning for our area so after another swim and dinner we battened down the hatches to await this deluge. Although some places did get swamped, we did not get even one drop of rain which made for another restful night.

SATURDAY 8 FEBRUARY 2025

Still aiming to be in Wellington for our ferry crossing on Feb 10 we said goodbye to this little piece of freedom camping at its best and headed to our next stop. As the Desert Road is closed for maintenance we needed to go on a smorgasbord of highways to reach Taihape, staying at the Gumtree Motorhome Park. At this stage we are not doing many 'tourist' stops as we will save them until we return to the North Island but we will need to make sure we remember to stop and smell the coffee as we travel from one town to the next in the South Island. Hmmm, Taihape - the town with the big gumboot and that's all I have to say about that. The motorhome park we stayed in was small but the facilities were spotless., the showers were hot and there was even a hedgehog to keep us company. The owner had to go to Wellington to pick her husband up so we had the entire place completely to ourselves!! We ventured out to downtown Taihape to the Gretna Pub for dinner AAAAAAND really wish we had gone to the Chinese place if you ziggy, ziggy get my drift.

A very empty Gumtree Motorhome Park - Taihape

SUNDAY 9 FEBRUARY 2025

The road trip yesterday was quite relaxing on secondary roads with lots of passing lanes. In comparison todays trip was busy, busy, busy as we connected with Highway One again but we arrived at the Plimmerton NZMCA Park without any hitches. This is the very first time we have stayed at one of the NZMCA parks and what fantastic facilities they are. This particular NZMCA Park is only 20 minutes from the Picton ferries so is ideal if you are heading either way across the strait. It has 70 sites and is within walking distance of Plimmerton Beach. Best of all though it has an AMAZING German bakery right next door that does amazing gourmet pies and a German Fitness loaf that is a bit like Vogels on steroids!! We explored the beach and the restaurants and decided to go to the Plimmerton Taj for dinner. Honestly we are so bad at picking eating spots as this Indian Restaurant is completely worth avoiding. So after refusing to pay for the warm, oxidised wine we headed back to The Beast for a good nights sleep before heading to the ferry.

Plimmerton Beach, Wellington

MONDAY 10 FEBRUARY 2025

We knew we weren't in any great hurry to get to the ferry but when I checked our bookings I realised that I had read the boarding time as the departing time so we had an extra hour before we needed to head to the port. This slight miscalculation meant that we would be arriving in Picton an hour later than we thought so we decided to book a night in Picton before heading off on our South Island adventure. On the way to Wellington I read on the Bluebridge Ferry website that vehicles over a certain weight MAY be required to have tie downs to anchor the vehicle in rough weather. We didn't have any tie downs so we were both a bit twitchy that this might prevent us from sailing today but luckily the weather Gods were with us and we had no problems. After feeling a bit stressed about the crossing, it all went absolutely to plan. A smooth crossing with no hiccups. So now we have finally brought The Beast to the mainland and tomorrow we can change down a gear or two as we meander down the West Coast. 

Land ahoy - oh, it is just Picton.

At Lake Whakamaru we saw a motorhome with a name that we could totally relate to - in fact we are adopting it for our trip this year. So henceforth our trip this year is to be known as:

Adventure before Dementia!!

The First Leg