We had a great weekend with the other Traillite owners at the Agricultural Park in Christchurch. More and more turned up on Friday and eventually there were about 35 motorhomes. it was a great sight. Friday was a shocker of a day, cold and wet. Some attendees were snowed in at Hanmer. There was an initial gathering on Friday evening, inside luckily, with heaters. Saturday morning started with morning tea, and then we had a great workshop on GPSs and how to use them. The afternoon started with a general question and answer session on all sorts of things. Later we had a wine-tasting session and learned quite a lot about wine. Dinner was a great BBQ, made on and in a huge smoker/BBQ trailer/machine. After tea was the “Ross and Wyn” show, which was a bit daunting. We ran a show and tell session with photos of favourite places. People had contributed lots of photos of great locations and we interspersed these with photos of our own of our Northland meanerings. We concluded with our first ever joint poetry recital – reading The Ballad of Suzi Truck which I’d written for the occasion. Motorhome poems are not thick on the ground, so this could be the best poem ever written about Traillite motorhomes.
Sunday was sunnier, with a bit of frost on the roof in the morning. It was open-home morning and we had a good time checking out each other’s motorhomes. The best thing was that there were things to learn from everyone, whether the newest or oldest. Plus it was a great way to mingle. Sunday evening was an informal BBQ, with the premiere of the Traillite song; another gap in musicology filled 🙂 With some hitches in recording, encores of the song and the poem were called for and performed and acclaimed. So ended a wonderful weekend – a great idea well supported and well executed.
Monday morning was lovely, sunny and calm. Everyone was packing up and moving on. By now everyone will be scattered to all points of the compass. So it is with gatherings of gypsies. We were in no hurry and were one of the last to leave. We parked up Suzi and drove a short way to visit a friend of Wyn’s. Then we moved on to the Papanui RSA carpark. It was a fabulous afternoon, sunny and warm. We thought of driving to the gardens, but instead unloaded our bikes and took to the nearby cycleway. This took us along the rail corridor from Papanui into the city and Mona Vale. We parked up here and took a stroll through the gardens; everywhere was blossom and flowers. Eventually we rode on to Haglee Park nearby, and then across the park. Everywhere were walkers and cyclists and runners. It was about 6pm by the time we retraced our wheels to Papanui. It was a lovely evening in a lovely city.