Sunday was a lovely lazy day. Wyn caught up with her friend that we were parked up with at Matatoki. I had a bit of a tidy up and in the afternoon updated a few things on the computer. Wyn and Ann went for a walk along the beachfront at Thames. We had a lovely tea and said our goodbyes. Ann had to be off to work early next morning and we had to head east to the Bay of Plenty.
Monday was the day for moving on to Tauranga. It was a chance for Wyn to catch up with her grandson at Papamoa and maybe to get Suzi’s springs seen to. The springs had started to squeak badly and the advice has been to get teflon inserts – whatever they are. A call to the dealers in Tauranga indicated that it would take about 3 days and we’d need to find somewhere to live for the duration. It was a lovely morning in Matatoki and we were on the road reasonably early. The drive to Waihi was beautiful; lots of blossom trees and lush farmland. We made a beeline for our favourite cafe there, Banana Pepper, for coffee and other yummy things. And walked out with more good food for later. On the way back along the road I bought myself a pair of plastic croc shoes. We were doing our bit for the Waihi economy. we started to work out that we could probably get Suzi to the truck place in Mt Maunganui that afternoon and maybe save some time and hassle.
So we checked into a cabin at the Papamoa Top 10 Holiday Park and did a quick unload of what we thought we might need for the next 3 days. Which was a lot of stuff. We are so used to having everything with us; having to figure out what we would need was interesting. Luckily it was a roomy wee cabin….
Then it was back to the truck place to drop Suzi off, and they ferried us back to Papamoa. The holiday park is beside the beach and a very nice beach it is too. Plus it is close to Wyn’s grandson and the mall and lots of shops and the supermarket. It is a very nice camp and we were soon settled in and relaxed.
On Tuesday Wyn’s grandson came to visit for the day. We made good use of the camp and the beach. The camp has a great big bouncy pillow thing set in the ground which is kept up on air. We all had a go on this and we later saw the sign that explained that adults are only allowed on accompanied by a child. Which just goes to show how useful having a child can be. The day started off a bit gray and overcast but turned out nice. In the afternoon we went sandcastle building on the beach with our big bucket and a small spade I borrowed from the office. Later we walked Wyn’s grandson back home after a lovely day. We were all tired and Wyn and I had found some new muscles; well old ones that hadn’t been used for a while ….
Yesterday (Wednesday) started out gray and got worse with showers throughout the day. We were still waiting to hear when Suzi would be ready. We had a nice lazy morning and sorted out a few things via the computer including getting ourselves set up with Skype and trying to figure out what Facebook is all about. In the afternoon we headed off to the mall and beyond to Fashion Island which is a big bunch of mostly clothes stores. Wyn headed into the Bendon one which didn’t seem ot have anywhere for blokes to wait without feeling a bit self-conscious. so I went next door to Barkers just to have a look. I walked out again with some new shorts and a new top for the summer. We headed back to the camp via the supermarket. By evening the rain had set in and getting between the cabin and the camp kitchen got a bit wet. It’s things like this that help us to appreciate how wonderful it is to be able to travel with everything we need in a motorhome.; kitchen, toilet, shower – the works.