Kia Ora koutou

Well spring has deserted us for the time being and its been a very drizzly day so I thought I would take the time to update what has been what for the past week or so.

Left Waipawa and headed off to Dannevirke, again just over 60kms to the South which took just over ninety minutes as we stopped a couple of times once for the dogs and once for a coffee break. I spent five nights in Dannevirke as it was over the Labour Day weekend (kind of a bank holiday in NZ) so thought that A. the roads would be busy and B. the camp sites would be hectic with everyone making the most of the weekend, and at only $10 a night it seemed like the sensible thing to do. Now Dannevirke is a quite a small town but with all the shopping one would need. The biggest downside to it was that it was very dog unfriendly. All the open spaces had no dogs signs, even the A and P showgrounds didn’t allow them. So it was a drive out into the country to find some open spaces for the dogs to have a bit of run around on.  The campsite got very busy on the Friday due to the holiday weekend and a caravan club of about fifteen caravans turned up. I think there was just one powered site available after they had sorted themselves out. There were also a couple of families in tents which you don’t see very often these days. But I guess the warmer weather brought them all out.  Unfortunately not to far from me were an Asian family of which the youngest girl was learning to play the ukulele. One strum pattern and two chords all weekend got a bit much very quickly. Just like the drip drip drip of the water falling on your head, or the literally meaning of Chinese torture.

While I was here  I managed to have a drive out to a very small settlement called Weber (pronounced Weeber) which was about 35kms Easterly towards the coast  from Dannnevirke and a place I had wanted to visit for quite a long time.  When I say its a small settlement there is nothing there at all apart from a handful of houses but, what it does have is a school (primary) and this is the place I had travelled to see.  This was the school where Amy got her first job as a teacher after graduating from Otago University at the end of 2006.  I must say it looked a very lovely school and I sent Amy some photos of it. She was surprised to see how much it had grown since her days there.

After leaving Weber I drove on for another 20kms or so as there was a hill I wanted to go and see. Its not as if it was a big hill at just of 300mtrs but its famous and big in a very special way, and this is it, its called. Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenaukitanatahu, the longest place name in the world, and there will be picture to prove Im not making it up.

So after pottering around this area until Tuesday morning I moved on heading a bit further South and decided to drop anchor in as little town called Pongaroa. I parked up near the sports pavilion, no power but there was fresh water and a dump station so all was good. As well as no power there was no cell phone, radio or tv reception. the lack of tv was down to the 30 meter high trees directly behind where I was parked blocking the signal. But I had my music and  kindle so was more than happy.  Not much to say about this town, a pretty little place but nothing really of note to tell you about. I drove out to the coastal town of Akitio more for something to do than for any specific reason. It was about 30kms each way on mostly gravel (or metal as they call it over here), and never passed another vehicle either going or coming back.  I did notice though that when you did pass another vehicle they always waved, it must be the novelty of seeing another road user.  On the Wednesday night I went to bed with a bit of wind blowing and was awoken a couple of hours later with a full on gale blowing.  The caravan was really rocking about and there was a lot of banging where the wind was hitting the rear of the caravan, making sleep all but impossible.  I was very concerned as well due the fact the high trees I mentioned earlier were only about 3 meters behind the caravan and I did wonder what would happen if a branch or God forbid the whole tree came down. I did consider packing up the caravan and moving it but was concerned that if I got side on to the wind that the van would tip over, the wind was that strong.  So discretion being the better part of valour the dogs and I moved the car to behind the sports building which provided a bit of shelter from the worst of the wind and catnapped (or dognapped) in the car for the rest of the night. The wind carried on well into the next day and I finally managed to move the caravan to behind the pavilion mid afternoon on the Thursday.  It was by far some of the strongest wind Ive experienced since being in the country.

I left Pongaroa on the Friday morning with the intention of stopping at a place called Alfredton. But, I drove straight through Alfredton without realising it. It wasn’t until I got to Eketahuna where I am now that I realised that was what had happened. I knew it was a small place but to not even register, not even a sign saying it was there. Ah the joys of back road driving in rural New Zealand.