I caught up with Lorraine and Russell at a recent Frankia Owners group meeting at Coromandel.

Like me, Russell has had a long career in Newspapers working in his old hometown of New Plymouth.

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He was a Linotype operator making the slugs, think blocks of text that make up a newspaper page before computers. He worked with a lot of my old friends (photographers) who migrated to the Herald and the Star in later years.

When I worked at the Herald in the 70’s, we had to walk through the linotype room to get to the photographic department and it always fascinated me to see these things working.  Big machines with great big lead bars being turned into blocks of text and then placed on the stone (the page). It was noisy too with the clatter of many of them. The Herald had roomfuls of them!

Back to Motorhomes .. Starting out in 2002, this is their 6^th Motorhome or Caravan. Their first Motorhome was a small Japanese imported Isuzu Motorhome. They’ve had several others including a 5^th Wheeler, a Dodge Ram with a slide on. A Laika motorhome, then a Dethleffs Magic and now the Frankia which they got last year.

It is equipped with a 3 litre, 190 HP Turbocharged Mercedes V6 with auto transmission.

As you would expect with a Motorhome like these, they are well appointed inside with every mod con you can imagine.

Favourite spots are the West coast of the South Island and Matai Bay in Northland.

Having had a few Motorhomes over the years, they have had plenty to compare this to and only had lots of nice things to say about their Frankia.  A really nice Motorhome!