Fiona and her sister Sara had organised a girls trip to Wellington and I wasn’t invited 🙂 

So I thought about a trip up around Coromandel for a few days on my tod. My first night was at Danby Field in Thames where there were plenty of holes free. 

I met my neighbours and their friends with their new Trailite and Burstner Ixeo which was interesting. The new Burstner Ixeo is like one of the new Dethleffs where they’ve completely done away with a permanent bed and rely solely on a drop down bed from the ceiling. Instead of having a bed at the back, the whole back area is devoted to a shower, toilet area and storage.  I’m not sure that it’s my cup of tea but it’s an interesting way of reducing the overall length of the Motorhome and still have plenty of space for a big social area at the front.

The next morning with it being windy, I had an early start and set off towards Coromandel town up the coast road. After having a couple of close shaves with reckless logging truck drivers coming the other way, I got to Coromandel quite early and headed straight to the NZMCA park in the town. 

With all the rain we’ve had and with it being quite low lying land, it was a mud bog but after only a few minutes parked there, I met quite a few people who were all parked together on a tar sealed area on the side. 

One caravanning couple, Rory and Henny, from Christchurch were traveling with their friends from Whakatane and the more I got talking to him, the more members of my family he knew, some probably better that me!  Small world stuff. It turns out that Rory grew up in Diamond Harbour where my grandfather had the general store, was postmaster and the local real estate agent as well. He remembers buying ice creams off my grandfather when he was a kid and described him to a tee. .. Wow.. He also knew some of my Christchurch rellies on my Mums side too.

I also met a couple in a CI Motorhome that we’d previously met in the NZMCA Ngontotaha park and some others who had recently received their brand new Dethleffs Trend. It was nice to talk to them too.

Seeing the amount of mud there and with another good thunderstorm and rain due that afternoon, I thought it would be prudent to check in at a local Campground and spoil myself in preparation for the Illume festival that night.