We’ve had a month or so of being housebound mostly due to Rafe’s Bumper project and also a full annual service. Getting it back meant we could escape !
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Rafe in the park with newly painted bumper!
Coromandel is somewhere we both thought would be great for a few days before Fiona had to return to work. We only had 4 days so we figured somewhere not too far and where we haven’t been for a while!
NZMCA park
The Thames Coromandel District Council are making some great improvements on the coast rd from Thames. Every time I come up here its different. This time they’ve widened the road north of Waiomu.. there are still plenty of narrow bits but I saw they’re dealing with some of those too.
Star and Garter pub
We arrived in Coromandel early in the afternoon on a Sunday so many of the shops were shut. The important ones like the bars and one of our favorite ones, the Star and Garter was open and they had a special on Gourmet pizza’s $10.. that was us for a late lunch!
After a walk around the town, we returned back to Rafe in the NZMCA park.
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Home of the first National Bank
Where i was introduced to my first Husband Waiting chair 🙂
Neat buildings
The local butcher shop
You never get sick of Coromandel, the charm of the shops, even though most were shut as it was a Sunday, there were people wandering around and all of them very friendly. It has a great atmosphere with all the old buildings and everyone seems happy to have a bit of a natter.
We called in to an Metal Art shop which backed on to the NZMCA park and bought an amazing sculpture of leaves made using recycled parts of copper hot water cylinders. Clever use of old materials.
Where i was introduced to my first Husband Waiting chair 🙂
Later, it time to go down to get Fish and Chips for tea and we headed back to Rafe for the night.
A great Day in Coromandel town, it never disappoints !
It seems at this time of the year, there is an endless demand on outgoing funds for the Motorhome.. Service, Insurance, COF and a rattle or two you’ve discovered that could be silenced.
This year, the big one was repainting the Bumper just to add to the list.
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looks like a peely shoulder !
To be fair, a new vehicle where ever it is made should not have to have its bumper repainted after only 6 years so that grates a wee bit, but not being one to dwell on these things, it had to be fixed.
Before.. you can see the yellow tint in the lacquer from the sun.
The deterioration started about three years ago and when I raised it at the time with the dealers, I was told it came under the Fiat warranty which had by then expired. ….Hey Ho as they say.. Lets get on and get it fixed…!
It started with the whole bumper going a yellowy colour and then the paint peeled off in bits. I progressively sanded parts of it to blend the colour and make it look a bit better as it got worse.
About to be taken off
After talking to one of my favorite RV repairers Peter at RV repairs who is also a qualified spray painter, he advised that I should leave it as long as possible so as much of the peeling paint would fall off and remove the need for a massive sanding job!
.. It couldn’t wait any longer !!
Click on the Gallery below for a Slideshow
coming off
Number plate being attached so I could drive home.
Ready for sanding
Ready for preparation
How to look good naked !
Being sanded – pic by Nathan
Sanding – pic by Nathan
In Devonport where I live, there is a great family run business which many of my mates at school have worked at over the years, run by Dennis and Nathan Hale, called Fleet St Panel beaters. They have a great reputation for doing things properly and are well known around the community as being really nice people.
In getting the newly painted Bumper. reattached
Where they are next to the supermarket in Devonport is pretty tight for big vehicles so it was a case of getting the bumper taken off and taking Rafe back home until the painting was finished.
All sanded and primed.
The bad news came on day 1 when after taking it off, we found that the bumper was actually fiberglass, not plastic. This meant it couldn’t be dipped to strip the paint off and they couldn’t bake the new paint on. It also needed to be sanded thoroughly before applying a special primer for the fiberglass. The good news part of this is that fiberglass is really strong.
Sanded and ready for some colour
Nathan was telling me it they budget on a couple of hours to prepare a plastic bumper. This one needed a day and a half of sanding as a lot of it was by hand. .. I could see my budget being blown sky-high and Fiona giving me a stern talking to 😐
All finished and waiting for Rafe – pic by Nathan
Unfortunately, they had a couple of staff off sick and with the extra preparation, the 4 day job turned into two weeks but the outcome was well worth the wait. The finish was just sensational.
Although I was given the German paint codes, Kris the painter used a fancy machine that could read the colour off the side of the van and match it wirelessly to paints in NZ that can deal with our UV.
All done .. – WOW – pic by Nathan
An amazing colour match and friends who have known the van from new and know a bit about paint reckon it looks better than it was at the beginning.. I agree!!
Yes, it cost a bit more but I’m not complaining with such a great paint job.
Looking really good.. also with the polished headlights.
I’ve ordered a new logo sticker from Dethleffs and have my friendly local signwriter Tom putting the blue and white decals on over the next few weeks.
Just recently, I noticed that my headlights were getting a bit foggy and getting a bit of a yellow tinge to them. After checking a few websites out for a remedy, I found that there were several kits available for restoring the headlights.
I bought one of these kits and it being one of the better well known brands, I applied it to my headlights and they came up like magic. .. but they didn’t stay like it for long. Then I found out that the sealer used in most of these kits only lasted a few months and the headlights reverted back to their hazy yellow look again.
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All ready to go.. (bumper off being sprayed too)
Looking up on the web again, I found a company that comes around to your Motorhome, professionally cleans up your headlights and applies a two pot sealer that lasts for 5 years or more. It is baked on using Infra Red lights which also makes a big difference.
Fully prepared
Scott arrived right on time and parked right next to Rafe and immediately set about masking up the headlights and covering the front of the van with plastic to protect the van from muck and overspray.
Once that was done, he fired up the generator in the back of his van and sanded the residue of the useless sealer I’d put on and got the headlights looking quite clean but very cloudy as they now had no protection at all. After changing grits on the sander progressively up to 3000 grit, the headlights then felt like silk.
Sanded but not sealed
Out came the chemist in Scott and he sat down and mixed up the sealer.. it looked like three different parts actually and it all looked very precise.
Mixing the sealer
Next came the spray gear and the mask and as he sprayed each headlight, it was like someone turned the clarity filter on.. the difference was amazing. He then set the IR lights on to bake the sealant on.. After about 30 minutes, on went another coat and it looked even better.
Before !first coat
Scott’s a really interesting guy having worked in the UK as an engineer supervising the manufacture of Computer chips for many of the worlds biggest manufacturers. When he came out here with his Kiwi wife a long time ago, it was time for a change.. A really clever guy and looking at my headlights, I felt pretty fortunate to have someone like him cleaning them up.
The cost was a little over $120 which I thought was pretty good value given the setup involved and what he had to do.
Click on the Gallery below to see the Sideshow
Fully prepared
Before !
Sanded but not sealed
First coat of sealer
All done
The danger of not doing it and ignoring your headlights is .. you fail your COF when the line between high beam and low beam gets diffused by the cloudy headlights.. by then you’re also likely to have crazing in your lights which can never be sanded out. The only remedy then is to replace the headlights which in most of our vehicles is a very expensive exercise.
Drying
An amazing process and I have that warm fuzzy feeling of knowing that our UV laden sun can go for its life on my now well protected headlights.
One of the nice things about doing a blog like this is every now and then, you come across a really clever person who has designed or invented a clever new way of doing things.. this time its Ross Parkes, an all round clever bloke who after needing a spare part for his SOG system, decided he’d design and 3d print it !
The other side.. ready to go
From here, ho moved on to his Water Pig Its probably better that I let Ross tell this in his own words as when you hear the background, its an interesting story…
Much tidier
Take it away Ross 🙂
The Water Pigs, it all started when the fan motor on our SOG started failing and I enquired as to the cost a replacement – some $162 – yikes so instead I looked into the practicality of making a replacement fan assembly using a standard 50mm computer type axial fan.
During that investigation I considered that 3D printing a fan unit might be fun so purchased an Ender 3 v2 printer. Spent a day setting it up and then designed and made the fan housings (pic below) and experimented with different fans until I found one that worked ok – a whole nother story…
Pic by RossPic by Ross
After that I played around and made some other SOG parts such as the bayonet fitting that goes in the top of the cassette – really to get around the design issue with the factory fitting in that it allows liquid to get down the pipe to the motor if too much slosh going on. It also meant we could have a fitting on our spare cassette all ready to go when we do a swap and also played around printing our new house which is yet to be completed
At that point I had become fairly competent designing and driving the printer so started thinking what else could I make and the water filler attachment that we use on our van came to mind. Like many people I have something I made from bits and bobs that you can connect the hose to so as to not have to hold it when filling with water. (pic below) A bit of a consideration if you have larger tanks or if you are on your own.
Pic by Ross
And so was born the first “Water Pig” or “Poaka Wai” (pic above) which fitted the Fiamma brand fitting on our Traillite and out of interest I posted it on a couple of Facebook groups, “hey look what I made” and then had a flurry of people also wanting one but of course they were not all Fiamma…
So on with the R&D hat again and came up with 8 different piggy designs, some of which I am still refining. It would not have been possible without the help of quite a few people out there who volunteered to be guinea pigs for the water pigs. There are still a few tweaks that I need to do to perfect some of them and I have quite a lot of “seconds” that I sell off for not very much, well actually, I sell the good ones for not very much as well 😉 It is important to note that there are “commercial” water filler fittings available on Amazon/Ebay for various filler types but these are quite expensive and from off shore sources.
A whole bunch of piggies – Pic by Ross
The process of printing the pigs is not quick with each taking 5-7 hours depending on the size. (pics below – A piggy for Rafe) I could print them quicker but they would not be as pretty and probably not as strong.
The one for Rafe hot off the press – Pic by Ross
Sometimes things go wrong (pic below) so the printer does need to be monitored during the initial stages to ensure adhesion to the build plate is good and also if I have messed with a design I sometimes get it wrong and create some mutant pig…
Pic by Ross
Anyway, its been good for my brain developing the eight little pigs (so far) and hopefully is helping some people out by making dump station stops more efficient and easier due to not having to hold the hose….
In summary.. I’ve tried it on Rafe’s water filler (I had to wash it first before I could photograph it !) and it works really well..
For those looking for one, Ross is an administrator of the Facebook group RV Happy Travellers. You can contact him here
Its amazing who you end up meeting in campgrounds! After our first night in the Greytown Motor Camp, we moved to a sunnier site with more room next to Karen and Ian who were staying in their new Eldiss Caravan while they have their house built in Masterton.
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Ian and Karen with their Caravan
I popped my head in the door and introduced myself. Later in the day we got chatting and I discovered that they too were an Army family along with hearing about their huge success in the Olive industry.
They started their Olive business around 2001 by planting their first 1200 trees and later added more in 7 different varieties to bring the total trees up to approximately 1900. Over the course of the last 10 years, they have won numerous awards for the quality and flavours of their oil.
The Eldiss
Last year they sold their business, Juno Olives, bought a caravan, are building a new house in Masterton and retiring! A busy year… All going well the house will be ready in July.
The caravan is a brand new Eldiss Explor with a rear bathroom and Karen’s favorite part, the HUGE shower. Downsizing from their house to their first experience in a caravan, they found the awning an absolute necessity along with the motor movers for shuffling it around at campsites.
Click on the Gallery below for a Slideshow
Bedroom
Inside the awning
The Eldiss
Karen with a bottle of her Olive oil
Ian and Karen with their Caravan
Ian spent 20 odd years as an officer in the NZ Army specialising in Ammunition’s and Ballistics. He later spent many years in project management before the Olive industry beckoned. Karen was an Editor with TVNZ for years and later became a Technical Writer after doing a degree.
Its fascinating talking to people with these different backgrounds and working out how they both got from there to growing Olives 🙂
I’ve always liked the Eldiss caravans and their one is very comfortable with plenty of room. A lovely couple enjoying their caravan.
This is one of those places that you will remember for being super slick.
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This site was originally developed a few years ago by a chap who was really into Jetsprinting and set up the whole back area with a lake with obstacles for his hobby. I think since then it has changed hands and the new owners have developed the campground and Cafe. The lake is still there behind the campground area which is nicely set out with toilets and showers at one side. Plenty of powered sites to service them all and hop, skip and jump to the Flat Hills Café right next door.
Where the Jetsprinting used to be
We pulled into the massive carpark just a few k’s north of Hunterville and checked in at the Café. The lady there couldn’t have been more obliging and gave us a map showing where everything was.
After we’d ordered a coffee each and bought something to snack on, she explained that if we ordered tea and paid for it then (it was about 3.30pm then), we could specify a delivery time to the Motorhome at tea time. The options were 5pm , 6pm or 7pm. Wow I thought, I haven’t ever come across this before.
Inside the Cafe
We quickly ordered a meal each and after our coffee’s and a look around went back to Rafe.
Friendly Donkey
Our meals arrived right on the dot of 6pm and they were nice and hot and good food. A knock on the door and in it came. We washed the dishes and returned them in the morning.
The campground is on State Highway 1 and directly over the main road is the main trunk line to Wellington so you do hear the odd train and truck going past but at $22 Campsaver prices, its still really good value.
Nice parking
Its a great place for kids being well fenced with a great playground and plenty of farm animals for them to see.
The play area
Nice people, great value and very easy access and parking.
Rafe’s Tracker map to Flat Hills Cafe – Armada GPS
Yep it was really sunny. I was a bit anxious coming into Wellington as the city is not famous for its abundance of parking for Motorhomes at a sensible price.
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Plenty of Room
As we came over the Rimutaka’s, I thought we’d give the Petone Workingman Clubs parking a shot and see if we could fluke a powered site. When we arrived, we were in luck!
Flags at Half mast for the Duke
They have recently increased the price to $20 with or without power but with power, I think that is pretty reasonable and the food and facilities are just the best. The parking area is quite big with room for about 15-20 off Caravans and Motorhomes with a gap. There are only 4 powered sites all bunched together around a corner fence. You have to be quick to get a powered site 🙂
I went to sign in and we went in to have a drink and some tea. We’re members of a club in the south island so were able to use that for the bar. Great food at great prices. Nice to see the dancing on the floor too while people waited for their dinner.
Fiona at the BarDancing in the club
The next day we walked around to the Ava train station and caught a train into Wellington.
In the cityNice waterfront
The train system in Wellington is so slick. Why can Wellington do this and Auckland can’t!
The Ava Railway station
15 minutes or so from Petone and we’re in the center of Wellington enjoying lunch at a French café not far from the railway station. We walked downtown to the waterfront area which is really nicely done with cafes everywhere and plenty of seating and relaxing space for the office workers. Lots of runners and people exercising in their lunch breaks, its great to see.
Fiona indicated shopping was on the agenda so it was time for me to slowly walk back to the train and head back to Rafe. Fiona arrived about an hour later and it was time to head back into the club for dinner.
The next morning, Fiona wanted to catch up with an old friend from Devonport now living in Upper Hutt so she caught the train up there and I went for a walk around Petone, just a block away.
Its a neat place Wellington and it was nice that over the 3 nights we were there, we didn’t have anything but sunshine and sometimes a little cloud.
I love what the clubs are doing with them making their parking available to us to stay and its a great place to have a meal or a drink too and at great prices.
Another one of those towns that we keep coming back to. The food and shopping is good, the real estate prices like everywhere else have skyrocketed but it is still a lovely little town.
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The Sun is out
We checked in at the local campground as we’ve stayed there a few times before and the manager Ken can’t do enough for you. It is also a Winter Campsaver site so that makes it very cost effective in the off season. Nice showers and toilets and nice flat sites with big high hedges to protect against the famous Wairarapa winds. There is also a swimming pool next door run by the council which you can use in the hot months.
Ken was very welcoming and basically is was park wherever you like. We settled Rafe and plugged in and went for a walk into town and started at the french Café for a coffee before moving on to the pub.
That night when we got back, we met our new neighbours Michelle and Patrick from Wanganui and other neighbours Karen and Ian who have recently sold their award winning Olive Grove. Juno Olives. Really nice people who we spent a lot of time with over the next few days.
Play Area
The next day, we took Rafe to Martinborough to have lunch at one of our favourite Vineyards, Margrains. The Chardonnay is fantastic as is the food.
Click on the Gallery below for a Slideshow
Margrains Vineyard
Martinborough shops
Fiona in Martinborough
The Sun is out
Play Area
The Reception and toilet and Showers
Historic Cottage
We started in the main square at a Café in the corner and from there walked around the square to check out the shops. Fiona took a shine to a dress shop there and ended up buying a nice black dress and a wooden necklace to go with it which looks good. We then moved on to Margrains and the slow cooked Pork Belly they do has never tasted better. Nice to wash it down with a great Chardy!
The Pub in town
We headed back to the Greytown Campground to catch up with our neighbours.
On our last day in Greytown we were going to bike up a trail 10 k’s or so to a historic railway station just out of town but we got to the other end of Greytown and it started to pour with rain so a change to plan B. ..
We spent the rest of the day walking through the shops and later had a fantastic communal meal in Michelle and Patrick’s awning with our neat neighbours.
One of the nice things I find about getting out is finding all the little out of the way places you can stay for not a lot…. in other words very good value. They may not be perfectly flat or lacking in something but they make up for it in spades with their charm and beauty.
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Ekatahuna is one of those camping grounds. Great showers, toilets and with power and a well equipped kitchen for those who want them, it is surrounded on three sides by river and is just a stunner.
There is a Heritage walk to the town which is only 5 minutes away.
We arrived in the mid afternoon and checked in and we simply just parked in the middle of the grass. Fiona and I settled opened up some vent, plugged in and we were off to check out the walk around the camp by the river.
Click on the Gallery below for a Slideshow
Left ove Suspension supports
The walk to the River
Amazing Trees
The Ablutions block
Out on the Grass
The Park
The Council cuilding
The remains of one of the end supports of an old swing bridge that went across the river as a short cut to town is buried in the trees and can still be seen.
The River surrounding the park
There is a cabin there too which you can stay at and its all very casual and relaxed.
A great place to stop over and quiet too.
Rafe’s Tracker map to Ekatahuna Campground – Armada GPS
Since we’ve done our DNA, I’ve taken a great interest in things Scandinavian as it turns out that I’m pretty much all Scandinavian through my fathers line with an emphasis on Danish!… even though his Dad was from the Fens in the UK… real Viking country 🙂 it is really interesting.
So we couldn’t go past Norsewood without popping for a look and having lunch at the Café there. The food is amazing as is the coffee.
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The Cafe – ex BankThe Food!The Cafe
Norsewood was settled by many Scandinavian family’s who arrived in Napier in 1872 and it grew from there. You can feel it everywhere you look and the area is predominantly still populated by descendants of these original families.
Gas Station / General Store
There is history everywhere you look. The Café used to be the original Bank of NZ and has been used as a Barbers shop, the local Doctors rooms, Music teacher and lastly a Café.
Click on the Gallery below for a Slideshow
The old Post office
The Pub
part of the Museum
Museum
Over the road
There is also a Viking Longboat in a glass encased shelter down in the reserve on the corner.
The Viking Longboat
After a walk around the town and a stop at the Norsewear Clothing shop to buy some shirts we got under way again. One of things at the Norsewear shop is that if you spend more than $10 there, they’ll give you a pair of nice wooly bedsocks in either black or white adorned with either Caravans or Motorhomes. Fiona went for the white Motorhome socks and they look very cosy.
The “Wooly Socks” shop
A neat town and there is a camping ground there too if you want to stay. A neat wee town just oozing character and history.
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.
After a walk around the town, we returned back to Rafe in the NZMCA park.
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