Rob and Helen were in England visiting one of their daughters. While they were there, they had a thought, where they could buy a new AutoTrail from the factory, cruise around the Uk for 6 months or so and then ship it back to NZ. It was all going well until they found that Kiwis, Aussies and Canadians can only drive up to 3500kg GVM unless they’re on British drivers licenses. Their Tracker has a GVM of more that 4200kgs. Finding it was all getting unnecessarily stressful, they decided on plan B and decided to ship it brand new, to NZ to use and enjoy on NZ roads. By shipping it brand new, they avoided all the fumigating and cleaning that is required for importing a used vehicle😊. 3 years and 20000 k’s later, they’ve travelled through most of NZ with their daughter Chloe. Their AutoTrail Tracker is a nice van which is well kitted out out with Truma heating, Dometic fridge and all the other nice things you’d expect in one of these vehicles. We’ve shared some great trips and great evenings with them including last New Year’s Eve at Sullivan’s Bay (in the rain 🌂🍷😃).
After staying near our friends in Snells Beach, Rob and Helen for Robs birthday (a big round number!), in the morning, they spoiled us with a beautiful big breakfast. I’m not really a big breakfast person but this was amazing and such that I wouldn’t want to eat until late afternoon, despite all the tempting treats in the area.
A lone paddler at Snells Beach
We visited a couple of places a little before and after lunch but still couldn’t be tempted to eat🤗.
Rafe on the waterfront at Whangateau
We ended up staying at the Whangateau holiday park which is an Auckland City run campground like Orewa. They had an off peak deal happening where they were doing a significant discount so we were up for that! 😎 The tide was out when we arrived and it was a bit gloomy initially with the weather, but that improved to the point where stayed an extra night. A lovely spot right on the water.
The next morning it fined up with a nice blue sky so I went for a bit of a walk around the park. It is well set up, a nicely kept dump station, nice clean loos, everything anyone could want!
Isn’t it great when we all get together at a spot in our Motorhomes and over a glass of something cold, all the good ideas come out.
Close up on the doormat
On our last catchup with our friends, Gary and Dianne, Fiona found out about Norwex dish cloths and door mats. The door mats are fantastic as they have different textures on them so not only do they soak up the moisture from wet feet coming into your motorhome but they also pick up bits of grass and stuff too. The tea towel is fantastic as well. It’s the first time I’ve seen a tea towel dry a wine glass without leaving cloudy streaks everywhere. They also seem to keep drying where a conventional tea towel would be saturated. I’m convinced!
These could only be from the well known establishment of Morris & James.
Their pots are amazing with nice colours and they have established a real style. One of the other things I like about this place is the easy parking for big Motorhomes.
Click on the images for Hi res or slideshow Established by Ant Morris with his wife Sue James in 1977 as a pottery, it now features both, nice indoor and outdoor dining areas. A cup of tea and a cake or something more, it’s all there.
We stopped and had a browse through the pottery. They do tours through the factory too if you’re there at the right time.
As I said, I was struck by the amazing colours and the size of the large pots.
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.
The moment I’ve been waiting for, for a few weeks now, came today.
I have been testing the system over the last week or so and been getting some good throughput but my son ( a tech person) suggested last weekend that if the router supported two aerials, get another one and install it. I think he’s right as the throughput is amazing.
The aerials and bits all over the table before starting.The Truma panel with the TV wiring behind
I took the van up to Vantage RV at Silverdale this morning and Phil got right onto it. Using the TV for a power source as the wiring was easily accessible and installing a Dethleff switch to match the others in the van.
The switch all done
Then on went the aerials. The aerials need to spread apart if you have more than one so they don’t interfere with each other. Something to do with the wave they have and the rule of thumb is 1.5 times the height of the aerials apart minimum. Ours are much more than that anyway.
Click on the images to see Hi Res or a slideshow
The wiring cupboard before we started
Setting the aerial bases up
Phil screwing down the port side aerial base
Phil on the roof with the goop gun
The router in place ready to go
Shameless plug for Vantage with an aerial.
After a couple of hours of running conduit, screwing it onto the roof and setting it up, we fired it up and in the industrial part of Silverdale, this was the result:
Both tests showed only 3 bars out of 5 for 4G reception so it can only get better but given that ADSL mostly averages around 5 – 6mbs download and we’re getting 34 mb plus, its pretty impressive all the same.
Phil on the roof setting up the aerials
Now the data package. After searching high and low for weeks looking for someone who could do mobile cellular without any geographic constraints (like Skinny) or being in a fixed position, (like RBI), I got onto Netspeed in Dunedin. They were happy to provide me mobile data as long as I used one of their routers which they provided by courier. They assured me it worked at 12v and there would be no problem with the fluctuating voltage from either the solar panels or the alternator and this has all worked faultlessly.The whole thing was setup in a blink (by me) and there were no issues at all.
The day after I received the router, we were meeting friends up at Mahurangi West (Sullivans Bay) and even there where you can’t get a cell phone signal, Fiona was able to watch Netflix movies on her Ipad with no issues and that was without an aerial. See the Blog I did on Sullivans Bay.
The end result
So we’re all setup for fast broadband on the road.
I’m impressed and very happy with the setup.
One thing about Rotorua is your nose tells you when you’ve arrived. It’s that unmistakeable smell of the sulphur. It’s has been a while since we’ve been here so it was nice to hear that our friends, Gary and Dianne from Taupo, were heading that way too and funnily enough had intended to stay at the same place.
We arrived early in the afternoon on Friday and headed to the Ngongotaha NZMCA park. A fabulous spot with a bit of a view of the lake from an elevated platform which used to be a sale yard.
The view from the park with a peep of the lake.
The local committee have done a great job turning this into one of the NZMCA’s premier spots to stay. It has full recycling of rubbish, a dump station and fresh water and is huge. A nice grassed area at the back for the kids to play in (or grandkids) and lots if trees.
They have even very thoughtfully signposted where not to park if you don’t want to lose your satellite tv signal 🤓 A really nice touch!
After settling down with Rafe, opening some vents and meeting the neighbours, I wandered over to the back of the park where several Traillites were parked up. Some really nice people who I later had a drink with. They were from Cambridge and were on a group trip to some hot springs over by Whakatane. From what they were saying, it sounds like a great spot. Somewhere we’ll have to check out sometime soon.
“Traillite Corner”
Early the next morning, Peter, one of the Cambridge group from “Traillite corner ” as I named it 😊 Popped over to see my temporarily installed Internet and I gave him all the info on how to and where to get it.
A foggy start
Not long after they left with their friends, Dianne arrived in her car and then Gary with Luka their Grandson in the XLI.
After cups of tea and a catch up, we went in Diannes car into Rotovegas for lunch and a look around the shops as you do.
Fiona bought me some new clobber from Katmandu, some nice shirts and a couple of pairs of shorts and Gary was checking out lawn mowers.
The Amenities
The shed
Empty the next morning
The Cambridge crew on their way. At the dump station
In town
Government Building
A couple of hours later and we were back at the Ngongotaha park sitting outside have a few cold ones. It’s definitely no longer summer so we ended up with Gary, Dianne and Luka in the XLI having a nice tea.
Sundowners at Ngongotaha
The last time we stopped at Ngongotaha park, it had just opened and was pretty barren but the committee here have done a great job of making it one if the better places to stay.
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.
Their Tracker has a GVM of more that 4200kgs. Finding it was all getting unnecessarily stressful, they decided on plan B and decided to ship it brand new, to NZ to use and enjoy on NZ roads. By shipping it brand new, they avoided all the fumigating and cleaning that is required for importing a used vehicle😊. 
3 years and 20000 k’s later, they’ve travelled through most of NZ with their daughter Chloe. Their AutoTrail Tracker is a nice van which is well kitted out out with Truma heating, Dometic fridge and all the other nice things you’d expect in one of these vehicles. 
We’ve shared some great trips and great evenings with them including last New Year’s Eve at Sullivan’s Bay (in the rain 🌂🍷😃).
Bugger It, we are off - www.buggeritweareoff.com 
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