We haven’t been to a rally for a while and with it being at Kuratau at the bottom of Lake Taupo, our friends from Taupo, Dianne and Gary were keen to go  so we were off. We left early on Thursday night and headed for the NZMCA Ardmore park so we could avoid the traffic on Friday morning which worked well as we were in Cambridge having a cuppa at 10:30.

By lunchtime we were cruising up the hill to Gary and Diannes place about to join them for a quick lunch and then were going to head down to Kuratau in convoy.  Gary lead the way as he knew the road and we headed from Taupo around the western side of the lake down to Kuratau.

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An easy 1hrs drive and we were registering and settling Rafe and the XLI down and getting ready for Happy Hour.

The area was on a beautiful 6 acre property owned by Aucklanders Peter and Sandy, beside the river. They had a bach with a big open stone fireplace and their were two plateaus. We were parked on the bottom level next to the river. As the day went on, the area progressively filled up as more and more vans arrived. Happy hour is always fun and we met some new people and joined in for a couple of the raffles. I don’t remember seeing any of us (the 4 of us) win anything but its all a bit of fun and supporting the Taupo NZMCA.

Tea with the leaves

Chairman Geoff with his swiss cow bell

The wheel

Gary, Dianne, Fiona talking to Cyril and Gail.

Happy Hour

HQ for happy hour

Gary (right) coming out of Dethleffs corner

I met a chap who I knew but had never met from my old days as a newspaper photographer. He worked in Palmerston North on the paper there when I was in Auckland on both the Herald and the Auckland Star.   It was really nice to finally meet him as we had lots of common friends. Small world stuff.

The weather behaved itself, Geoff and Joyce and the committee did a wonderful job of organising it all and it was nice to see everyone having fun.

Kuratau is not somewhere we had been before and its lovely. We’ll be back there for sure. Thanks again to the Taupo committee for a well organised rally and to Peter and Sandy for letting us park on your front lawn. 🙂  It was great to catch up with our friends Gary and Dianne again.  A nice weekend having fun!