Our stay in Nelson …

11 10 2011

Trotting training at Richmond Park

It’s amazing how, with time, things get easier isn’t it?  Our stress levels have gone way down low and we can finally say we’re starting to enjoy our

new home.  We got to Nelson without any hiccups.  Even getting on and off the ferry was hassle-free.  Thankfully we were on the ferry when the sleet and hail started!!

Amanda had her first drive from just after Picton thru to Canvastown and found it much easier than she initially thought.  Even though we had planned to stay at Canvastown we ended up staying the night at Pelorus Bridge – more expensive than we had hoped but we had power. This mean’t we were warm with being able to plug in our electric blankies as well as having our fridge keeping the milk cold.  The next morning we drove straight to Campro in Nelson for them to install an LPG heater and to find the fridge fault.  The fridge worked fine for them (of course) so they couldn’t do anything there. We found a place to park in Richmond, at the Richmond A&P showgrounds and this is working out very well for us.

The next day the gas detector alarm started screaming – now what!!!!  We phoned Campro who suggested that it wouldn’t be because they had put the new LPG heater in incorrectly – but they would send the gas plumber out to us to check it out.  He found the problem! The wire, to make the spark for the gas, had rubbed on a bit of metal and was shorting out before it was reachi

ng the gas. I guess sometimes it was getting through (whenever a technician was looking at it!).

So we’re very pleased to say that our fridge has been working fine ever since. We’re slowly sorting out where everything is going and coming to terms with a second, or is it fourth, round of culling.

We even found our deck chairs yesterday and so we enjoyed a beer in the daylight saved and sp starting to feel more relaxed each day. Amanda’s been making jewellery at the table and her production levels are soaring. It’s been a very long time since she’s felt this enthusiastic and creative about her work. This has definitely been a good move.

Chris is driving a school bus and really enjoying it. She has never been thanked so many times in a day in one afternoon let alone in a week!!

Where is our kayak??!!

We will stay put here until the end of October and then we’ll head south to the first big market at Culverden. Just yesterday found a market to go to in November in Oamaru – the Steampunk capital of NZ! So we’ll be very pleased to

 

be showing off our steampunk wares to the converted 😆

Very pleased to say things are all good here, we have been very fortunate that a good friend of ours has made our kitchen cupboard into an awesome pantry and slowly things are being put in their place!!





And now we pick up our new home …

10 09 2011
Evergreen Ultima NZ 2012 model

Our new home by the seaside!!

We arrived at the dealers in Mt Maunganui nice and early and was shown around. Our heads were spinning very quickly as there was so much to try and take on board!  We got dropped off at a very pleasant nearby motorcamp for a couple of days while the ute was fitted with the hitch and electrics needed to tow the fifth wheeler.

The view was great – right on the waterfront but a bit disturbing when we realised how busy the boardwalk right in front of us was. All good though – our windows are so darkly tinted that no one could see in. We quickly got used to how the TV and finding satellites for reception worked and tried out the microwave, since we were on power. The next day we decided to try out the solar and that seemed all good too.

The big test came when we had to empty our grey and black tanks (or dumping as is known in RV land). Luckily, that actually was much easier than we had thought it would be. Finally, we are on our way to Auckland to visit the Covi Motorhome Show in Auckland. Chris is driving at the moment cos she’s the only one with the C2 license and … she’s more experienced and confident! We plug the trip to Auckland into the GPS and off we went. It actually towed very nicely Chris said – all good. We hadn’t realised the route the GPS had chosen for us was through the Karangahake Gorge. Talk about baptism by fire! No scrapes on any of the narrow bridges or on the narrow Gorge road even after meeting logging truck after logging truck!

We settled into our posy at Alexandra Park right next to a tree – another lesson learn’t!!  The satellite dish can’t seem to find any satellites when it’s looking for them through trees – apparently.  So, no TV!!  And, it was then we discovered that our fridge didn’t work on gas!  We also discovered that the DVD unit wasn’t set up to play NZ region DVD’s, so we couldn’t watch a movie either!!   We returned to Tauranga from Auckland to get the dealer to look at fixing our fridge, and to get some help with the DVD player – with no luck wotsoever.

We have to say the shine was definitely wearing very quickly off our flash new vehicle by now and the experience was a hard one to get to grips with. Going from having never even stayed in a motorhome or caravan to living fulltime in one foul swoop is a steep learning curve – that’s for sure – and with the teething problems we were having it was feeling like a very daunting exercise.





The journey begins …

26 08 2011

The house and furniture have been sold, the optional extras are in storage and the must-haves are in the wagon ready to go. We are off on our first adventure to go and collect our new home – one on wheels that is!!