While cruising around Matakana on Mother’s Day, we thought we’d pop in to Ascension Vineyard for a little wine tasting and see about buying some nice wine.
Ascension Cellar entrance and carparkRafe tucked away on the left.
This has to be one of the better Motorhome friendly parking places you can stop at. The carpark is huge. We parked in the corner out of everyone’s way and wandered over to the cellar door tasting area. We were greeted by a lovely French woman who really knew her wines.
Some of the wines tasted
Fiona enjoying the comfy chairs
My favourite was a Viognier which apparently is an almost extinct grape as it was allowed to die off in Europe. The story goes that it is quite a picky grape as to where and how it grows. It was imported to Australia and is also now here in NZ. A beautiful wine. I bought a few bottles of their assorted special wines and we left to find a place to stay for the night.
If you’re out Matakana way in your Motorhome, a very easy friendly place stop and have a meal or do some wine tasting.
After having the carpet laid in the van by the carpet layer, we ended up with quite a lot of bits left over.
I cut these up in the high wear areas, like in the Galley, by the Dining table and between the Shower and Toilet area and we had those overlocked too.
The first few trips away, we were nearly driven nuts by the rugs creeping across the floor, and trying to climb or bunch up against the bottom of the walls.
My first attempt at stopping this was after a trip to Mitre 10 where I bought a packet of plastic stuff for $9 that allegedly would stop this but after a trip away(the Shakespeare Park trip ), we decided we were wasting our time.
So I ended up back at Carpet Extreme in Tawa Drive in Albany where I bought the carpet originally, and they put me onto some stuff called Rug Hold. You buy it by the metre (about $32 odd a metre ). I bought 2 metres and it was just enough.. Brilliant stuff and it actually sticks to the carpet like tape.
It sticks to your shoes too while you’re cutting it. 🙂 I’m sure you can buy it from most carpet retailers.
It’s like underfelt with glue on both sides and the feel when you stand on it, is quite different like a really flash underfelt, and you can feel too that it isn’t going to slip around.
If you have this problem, now you know how to solve it !
After spending a couple days with a sudden lurgy and coming right, we needed to get out into some fresh air. Where better than the free parking at Gulf Harbour but by the time we got ourselves organised, it was 3pm. Maybe it might be Shakespeare Park I thought as it would probably be busy at Gulf Harbour. After trucking along the bends and obstacles along the length of Whangaparoa we arrived at Gulf Harbour. It was chocker! No sign of the 3 metre rule even.. Every single space was full. Most unpleasant I thought and dangerous so off to Shakespeare it was.
Auckland City from the beach
My only hesitation with the Auckland Parks is not the money. It’s just the tedious system they have to clock in each time. I tried to be helpful with the nice lady on the phone and suggested that they need someone to write an app for phones or iPads but that didn’t seem to be well received. I thought after I got off the phone that suggestion was probably going to do her out if a job.. Silly me!
Our Neighbours
Anyway, Shakespeare CSC park is a lovely place to stay and well worth the effort. We arrived just as the sun was lowering with a nice red warm tint over everything. With no wind, it was nice and warm. There were a few Motorhomes and a couple of caravans. Three Motorhomers I talked to were quite local, two from Helensville looked like they might be brothers with their families and an older couple from Orewa. Nice.
Remember, you can click on the images for Hi Res or slideshows
Ships waiting out by Rangitoto
Visitors from Hawkes Bay
Pu, one of two Pukekos wandering around
Looking out towards the public parking
Rafe in the Self Contained camp
As it got later, the day trippers all left and we were left to the peace and quiet. We cranked up the Internet to see how it would go. Our neighbours from Helensville couldn’t get data but could get texts so it’s not a flash area for throughput. I did a speed test and got 3.5 Mbps down and 2.8mbs up so not great but about the adsl speeds we used to get in Devonport so based on that, pretty good really. Fiona was back into her movie on Netflix so she was happy.
The Beach
We had a good lie in as it was Sunday.. Be rude not to I thought. I immediately thought of our friends Gary and Dianne who have me on about “not being a morning person” as it got later and we were still lying in the scratcher reading the papers on our ipads😎.
We were a bit shy in the vege department so we got up and scooted along the road to the Manly vege shop and had a wee drive around the Manly waterfront. A few gave us a few strange looks as we got Rafe around the narrow windy back streets but all good. After getting back to Shakespeare, most of our neighbours were leaving or about to leave and we had the place to ourselves.
The eastern camp
Eastern Camp
Eastern Camp
We had some lunch and went for a walk down to see the other campground at the end of the beach for the non self contained. It’s a lovely spot with flashish toilets and a place to wash your dishes. A much bigger park with lots of picnic tables scattered around and rubbish tins. Nicely setup I thought.
Fiona checking out the Beach. Auckland in the distance
Then came a walk along the beach through lots of Oyster catchers and seagulls back to Rafe. A nice place to stay. We’ll be back!
The Motorhome Broadband articles were hugely popular over the last few days. The Blog stats went up to over 55,000 views from all around the world :-).. And its really nice to get some good feedback from several people who have cottoned on to this and are really enjoying the value and speed.
Our Location
Now that the aerials are installed and its all working to perfection, with Fiona’s (and mine to a lesser degree) fondness of things Netflix, I found it sensible to take on my son Alex’s advice and install Google chromecasts on the Tv’s. This enables the TV’s to essentially take on the role of being smart TV’s to a degree and have access to the internet so you can “cast” Netflix movies (and others) to your TV. Its a very cost effective way of making it easy to enjoy your movies without wires and being able to watch them without being restricted to watching them on your ipad. Your iPhone or Ipad take on the role of remote controls for your movies or On Demand apps which then cast the data from the router to your TV.
Casting American Pie onto it with 10 minutes from opening the box!
They’re dead easy to install, follow the basic instructions and you’re away. You’ll be asked simple things like your Router name, its password and that’s about it.
The Chromecast with its power lead
The Chromecast itself needs two plugs on your TV. An HDMI port and a USB port for power. Rather than have mine have off the TV as shown in the piccie, I put some Velcro on it and velcroed it to the back to the TV. And where can you buy them? From Noel Leeming and PB Technoogies for around $70.
Fiona & Chris, two empty nesters put their dreams of doing something different into reality… Now back in a house, they were living in their Motorhome, come along for the ride.
Bugger It, we are off - www.buggeritweareoff.com 
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