To Thames and Matatoki

Yesterday (Saturday) morning dawned grey at Tapapakanga Regional Park – and got greyer. We had an explore around the beach and the homestead before breakfast. Day trippers started to arrive and we figured it was time to leave. Wyn managed to trip off the security alarm at one stage and we couldn’t remember how to disarm it; it’s one of those things we keep meaning to get around to reading up on. I suggested getting the manual out but somehow Wyn managed to convince the thing we were friendly without resorting to the instructions. Meanwhile I remembered another thing we kept meaning to sort out and dug out the Isuzu track manual. Suzi has a feature called Hill Start Assist which is supposed to help with hill starts obviously. It always sounded helpful but the instructions were so darned complicated we’d never managed to finds the time and energy to work out how it worked. I kid you not. How is this for information you should probably not try to understand before your morning coffee or after you’ve thought of anything else for the day: “The HSA indicator light will not come on when the HSA OFF switch is ON.” After 10 minutes trying to understand the manual we had a go on our way out. It seemed much simpler than the manual explained it. I felt foolish for taking 9 months to work it out and spent the rest of the day trying it out. Basically it allows hill starts without resorting to the handbrake. It’s a good feature and one that would have been handy quite a few times. I console myself by telling myself “better late than never”.

After lots of assisted hill starts we made our way back down the coast (Seabird Coast) past Miranda and Ray’s Rest (toot .. toot Les and Suzanne) to SH25 and across towards Thames. At the Kopu Bridge it looks like they’re setting up camp in preparation for building the new 2-way bridge. That’ll be well-received. At Thames we ventured into the Warehouse. I was after some replacement jeans and Wyn was after some crocs (called Frogs in the Warehouse) plastic shoe things. Wyn decided on some replacement jeans as well but apart from that we came out with nothing more than we went in for. This may not sound significant, but for me it was probably a first. After some restocking at PaknSave we headed around the block past my old Sunday School and church (St James) and south out of Thames, past Kopu again and on to Matatoki where we stopped at Wyn’s friend Ann’s new place. She’d only moved in the previous day from Thames. After lunch we helped a bit with unpacking – I got the TV and DVD hooked up and sat down to watch the first episode of the Goodies (1970 would you believe?). Later I tackled the task of sorting out Suzi’s drawer of shame – the one with all the computer/stereo/iPod/phone/battery charger/12 volt adaptor cables and cords and connectors. It was like a snake pit only less likely to untangle. What rule of matter determines that any grouping of cords left alone will tangle itself in the most impossible manner? It was a long job but now they’re all twisty-tied up and we have a sporting chance of extracting the one we want reasonably easily.

By the time I went back inside Wyn and Ann had settled down with the wine and nibbles- part of the gift pack from the real estate sales firm. What could I do but help to mark the occasion as well?

This entry was posted in Daily log. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.