A New Yak

The week went well at North Harbour Hire. Busier than expected but a very interesting operation with many characters as customers. We then spent a night at Phil and Erin’s before moving to Ron and Maureen’s where we had arranged to look after Zen and house sit while they went away. We spent the whole week there and Mike bought a little generator for the bus. Struan and Debbie flew to South Africa to see Deb’s ailing grandmother so we had Struan’s car for the week. On Thursday morning Phil rang to say that Zoe Celeste had been born in the early morning. Thanks for waiting Phil! We visited the little cutie and her parents that evening and were totally charmed. The rum race on Friday saw Vanilla Ice spend 40 minutes on the putty to escape from a falling tide with the assistance of a big gust of wind which heeled the boat until the gunwales were under water. Yay! Otherwise we would have been sitting on the bottom until about 8PM. On Sunday night we moved to Willow Park where we had arranged to stay with power. When we arrived we were told that we could not go on the grass and thus could not connect to the power. The little generator was pressed into service each day. On Wednesday Mile looked after North Harbour Hire again and the generator did not get turned on. Overnight the batteries went so low that the fridge stopped. There was virtually no sun all week so the solar panels could not charge the batteries. On Friday we drove to Matamata to collect a new Kayak which we had ordered at the boat show. I did not tell you that we went to the boat show on the Saturday of Queens Birthday weekend. This will do for another 10 years!We spent last night in the Waihi Motor Camp. This is expensive and not very good. Down in a gully and the facilities need a bit more care. Today we move on to Whangamata.