An 'at home' post for a change :)

We won't be going away in the motorhome for awhile but will be flying and away for 5 nights from Saturday.  Other than that we'll be home - we took the motorhome back to the dealers yesterday to get a few things done/repaired so we'll pick it up in a week or so.  

We had Charlie to stay last night - Cole was with his Mum and had a paediatrician appointment.  She went to a Dr who is a specialist in Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist.  As I've said mentioned many times over the years, we've always known that Cole had 'something' not right with him.  It's driven his poor parents crazy not knowing how to handle him to what was wrong with him.

Sometimes he can be a gorgeous child but at other times he suffers from anxiety, anger and so many other things.  Let's just say much of his behaviour is not normal.  He had a really sad educational/learning assessment done last year but still no diagnosis.  Yesterday the doctor said to my daughter that it is an absolute, beyond any doubt, that he has both ADHD and ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder).  Really that was no surprise to me at all but she is taking it harder than she thought she would.

The good thing is that having a name for what is wrong with him means he can get some help and he has been referred to a place called Rainbow House where they specialise in kids like him. I just hope he can learn new techniques to control the anger etc and grow up to be a happy, healthy teen and adult.

Having Charlie on his own really made us realise also just how far on the spectrum Charlie is.  He is a delightful, loving boy but exhibits many autistic traits which we've tried to not notice but there is no denying he is different.  I still think he will become a lovely young man though and hopefully can negotiate cruel people who will treat him not so well. 

Tomorrow Stu's Dad and sister arrive and we are going to visit a family friend then shopping.  We are off early Saturday morning for our next adventure to the very bottom of the South Island!

I'll leave you with a couple of photo collages...

~ Lynda

We bought a fly gun from the RV shop ages ago for a joke but actually it is amazing when you have a pesky fly in the motorhome. Stu thought it was rather funny watching me go in for the kill.

Stu took Charlie out to see the new Manukau Bridge yesterday.  He had a lovely time and enjoyed 'posing' for the photos.  He has bucked front teeth but now that other teeth have come down next to them they are not quite so noticeable.  He will get the front teeth sorted if they don't straighten on their own.

Motorhome meet up...

We have been members of the Benimar motorhome Facebook page for over a year now and gained loads of advice from fellow members.  We have spent the last few days at a motorhome meetup/rally which was held at a private POP (park on property) just north of Whakatane.

We decided to stay a couple of nights before the rally at the DOC Matata campsite.  It was brilliant... gorgeous beach and the friendliest custodian we've ever met! We had lunch at the Matata Pub (excellent food) and even met up with another couple who we met while waiting to collect our motorhome from Traillite a few weeks ago.  

From there we travelled the short distance to the Benimar Rally where we met up with the owners of 32 other Benimars.  It was just wonderful to meet so many like minded people and to share information and stories. We have made a few new friends who I am sure we'll meet up with again!

We left on Monday morning and travelled back up to Tauranga where we had lunch with our good friends Pamela and Duncan.  From there a drive to Te Aroha NZMCA park for the night and back home on Tuesday.  A lovely time away and so happy that we bought a motorhome!

Now it's washing and cleaning and prepping for going away on Saturday down to Queenstown and Invercargill and Stewart Island!  We are going (flying) with Stu's father, brother, sister and sister-in-law.  It's been planned for ages so I hope it all goes well.

Tomorrow Stu is taking the motorhome back to the dealers to get a few things fixed so it can stay there until we get back from down south.  We are having the boys tomorrow night so that they don't forget who we are :) It's all go this week!!!

~ Lynda

Doc Camp at Matata

Matata Beach

Matata Doc camp - that's us at the back.

Matata Pub

A rather "interesting" motorhome at the Matata Doc camp.  If this was their 'travel' cross I wonder how big their home cross is!

At the Benimar Rally - we had a lovely sunny spot.

Three Benimar Tessoros 481s in a row - a very rare sight indeed.

The rally BBQ - Stu doing some of the cooking... and me watching.

At one of the morning teas - such a lovely group of people and many friends made.

One the road - Part Three

We picked up the boys from their other grandparents in Lower Hutt and set off for Taupo.  It's a reasonably long drive so there were food stops along the way.  We arrived at the Lake Taupo Holiday Resort at around 3 pm so the boys had plenty of time to try out the amazing new hydroslides there.  We just watched them but the next day we all got in the pools and I did three rides of the slides.

The first time I went down the slide I thought it would be easy as I'd done similar ones before.  No, it was terrifying for me because I just went so fast and the interior was blacked out much of the time.  I shot out the end and gulped water and was in a state of near heart failure!  Seriously, I'd got a bit of a shock and had to go sit down.  

Not to be beaten I then did the slightly shorter slide and stopped myself going so fast by putting my hands on the sides - that worked so I did that slide again at full speed.  I didn't do the higher, faster slide again... I simply didn't love that experience at all!

The boys spent nearly the entire day in the various pools and even went back later in the day for a second round.  It was simply amazing looking around the large pool because the weather was really cold yet there were well over 100 people in the pool... many with cocktails in their hands. 

The next day was home day and we were happy to hand the boys back to the parents! Enough said :) 

Home to loads of washing, then cleaned the motorhome inside and now we are getting it ready for the next trip which will be down to Whakatane for the Benimar owners rally.  There are 35 Benimars booked so far so it will be a fun time!

Today was spent entirely in the garden - Stu cut the hedge and I trimmed all the shrubs and did all the garden.  We are both knackered... it was really, really hard work but all done now.

~ Lynda

Inside the DC3 at the Taupo McDonalds

Outside the "World's Coolest McDonalds"!!

The boys went straight to the top!

Charlie coming out of the slower slide

And Cole :)

Chilling out in the motorhome

Stu with the boys - they were diving down really deep here, it's an amazing pool.

Yep, my exit from the slower waterslide.  Thankfully Stu never took my photo exiting the faster, yellow slide.  

Evening in the pool.  Earlier in the day this area was absolutely crowded.

And still lots of people there in the evening (7.30pm). The bar was open :)

A beautiful sunset to end a lovely day.

On the road - Part Two

So where were we.... Oh yes, Mahia Peninsula: We got up at 5 am and drove to the rocket viewing area.  There were about 8 other cars there and a nice little group of people all as crazy as us!  Sadly it was cloudy so that when the rocket took off we only saw the initial ignition and a little of it going up before it disappeared into the clouds.  BUT at least it did go up and we were there, it's been on our list of things to do for ages.  I do think we will go back another time though to hopefully see it on a clear day.

From there we drove down to Napier and got caught up in a massive truck parade! Stu got into the spirit of things and waved and tooted along with the massive truckies.  We then drove south to Waipukurau for lunch and ended up at a freedom camp at Te Paerahi Beach (Porangahau).  Another magic spot with a fabulous beach where you can walk for miles. 

We left Porangahau and decided to take the back roads down towards the Wairarapa.  Normally that would be fine but with all the rain lately the roads were very potholed and washed away in places.  There were orange road cones everywhere and a journey that would have taken a couple of hours took over three. Never mind, it was interesting and we got to see the longest place name in the world :)

We travelled down through the main road after this and went through all those gorgeous little Wairarapa towns that I'd been to so many times before.  Greytown (where my father was in hospital for a long time and died there) was simply gorgeous - what a stunning, picturesque town it is!  I think we will need to spend longer in this area next time we are down.

From there it was over the Remutuka Hill (formally called the Rimutuka Hill) where there was a high wind warning... great, we were in a motorhome!  We took it easy and arrived safely at my brother's house and had a wonderful afternoon/evening.  We stayed there the night in our motorhome and left after breakfast.

It was then on to the Hutt Park Holiday Park where we stayed for three nights.  It's a great camp in a great location and really close to where my son lives.  We couldn't stay with him for various reasons and couldn't even drive up to his place as he lives up a hill where traffic is restricted to smaller vehicles. We ate out with him a few times and went to his lovely home. We also visited my sister and spent the afternoon sorting her out with a new smart view attachment for her TV. 

Tomorrow we get the boys for Part Three of this little adventure!

Lynda :)

People at Mahia Peninsula waiting for the Rocket Lab launch... we weren't the only crazy people :)

It was very early (6 am) and cold!

Part of the truck parade we got caught up in

At Porangahau Freedom camp

We woke to a gorgeous day at Porangahau 

We even found the longest place name in the world by taking the back road to Wairarapa "Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu".

Our camping spot in Lower Hutt.. it was great because we were right close to the facilities. 

On the road (and loving it)

We left for our next adventure on Wednesday.  First stop was a Tavern on the Napier-Taupo Highway.  Oh what an experience that was!!  The place lets you park up overnight and came with some 'interesting' online reviews.  Some reviews said it was awful because there were ladies bras hanging over the bar and 'misogynist' truckies stop by.  We thought that sounded like fun and found the landlords to be very hospitable and naughty!  For a while we were the only ones staying so we had a great chance to have a chat.  Later on more locals arrived and it was such a fun night.

The next morning we woke to SNOW!!!  That was what we were hoping for as the forecast was for freezing weather.  It snowed while there and also while we drove over to Napier.  The hills were white with snow and there were kids and parents by the roadside making snowballs and having fun.

We then went to visit/stay with our friend who has a wife in a care home.  We all went there for a few hours to visit my darling friend and I was actually pleasantly surprised at how well she looked considering her condition.  She got such a lovely surprise to see me and we had the most marvellous visit.  She still had her wonderful sense of humour and remembered so much about the fun we'd had in the past.  We have been best friends now for 45 years.  Crazy.  This is the woman who I was friends with when my children were babies, the woman who I have travelled to Europe and US with.  So many laughs and memories but so very sad to see her so disabled due to brain tumours.

We went back today for another visit before a sad goodbye but now that covid is no longer restricting us we will be back before too long.

After leaving Stu and I made the rash decision to head up to Mahia Peninsula to see the latest RocketLab rocket take off.  It's been on our bucket list for a long time and as fortune would have it, the launch has been delayed so hopefully tomorrow morning it will blast off!  Fun times.

Did I mention I love motor homing?  Of course I did:)

~ Lynda

The Rangitaiki Tavern where we parked up on our first night

Snowing in the morning!!

Driving to the Hawkes Bay and snow on the hills

Trees along the roadside covered in snow... magical!

Our camp for the night

Mahia Peninsula - Opoutama Beach freedom camp

Home then away (again) !!

We've been home this past week - Stu has been doing a project for the company he used to own (he still does some contract work). We also had the boys for a night and have generally relaxing.  What a wonderful life I have - trust me, I fully realise just how lucky I am and how I/we need to value every good day we have because none of us know what's around the corner.

The two boys are going down to Wellington this week with my ex-husband to stay for a week.  In the meantime Stu and I will be travelling to Hawkes Bay to finally catch up with my bestie who I've not seen for a very long time due to covid etc.  She lives full time in a care home due to her illness and by the sound of it she has deteriorated even more so it will be very timely to visit her and her husband now. 

After that we will stay a couple of nights on the way down to Wellington where we will be catching up with my brother and sister and my son.  I haven't seen my brother or sister for a long time and given that they are 83 and 81, I think we are long overdue for a catchup! We will stay for four nights in the area then pick up the two grandsons, travel back to Taupo and spend two nights at the Taupo Holiday Resort.  

The boys used to have their Christmas holidays at the resort a couple of years back and LOVE it there but the surprise will be that they now have hydro slides.  Holy moly, they will PEAK when they see them.  Oh and there is a swim up bar, movies at the pool and it's all fully heated! 

So there you have it, another wonderful motorhome holiday coming up and I must add, the beauty of having a motorhome (especially during school holidays) is that you can easily get accommodation.  All of the places we are going are booked out for cabins or units etc but you can always find a spot for a motorhome.

Before then I have an appointment to get my stitches out of my leg (the 'lump' was a lipoma as expected and measured 4cm x 3 cm so about the size of an egg).  I'm glad it's gone as it really was in a very awkward place for riding my bike... say no more.

~ Lynda

A couple of photos of the holiday park we are taking the boys to next week.  It should be fun :)