The nice thing about a get together like the Dethleffs Owners meetings is to catch up with other owners like John with his Dethleffs Black Magic, and see the modifications and improvements they have made to their Motorhomes.
One of the wee gems that I really liked was John’s change to his curved galley cupboard which was hinged with shelves, into a full slide out cupboard. It completely changes the the availability of the shelves behind and allows you to make better use of the shelf space.
After a great day of meeting new people, swapping notes and checking out new Motorhomes, everyone arrived at the Miranda Motorcamp outdoor kitchen. While most continued the chat over a cold orange juice, a BBQ fry up was under way by Owen and his team representing Jonas and Dethleffs NZ. They did a magnificent job of cooking for over 80 people. Thank you Owen, Jonas and Dethleffs NZ for providing the great food and for another great event.
A surprise for the evening was the presence of a team from Mecatronics and Kiwisat in Italy who supply the bulk of the Dethleffs TV antennas in NZ.
Enjoy the Gallery and remember to select the images for hi-res images.
After the tidy up, many retired to the hot pool in the Campground.
This morning, many left to head home to all over NZ but there are quite a few staying on. More tomorrow!
A great showing of hardware, nice weather, lots of happy faces and gatherings of like minded people swapping notes and enjoying their Motorhomes. 
Miranda Holiday Park is a great venue and is chocker with Dethleffs. I’m looking forward to a swim in the hot pools later.
Enjoy the images.
Don’t forget to click on each image to get the hi res version
It I s interesting to see innovative improvements made by owners to their Motorhomes. I’ll post more on these over the next few days.
Last year, we had 24 odd Motorhomes attending, this year it is more than 40! What will it be next year.
This is a wee bit off topic, more about boats than Motorhomes but I’m so disappointed in our brain dead elected council people to let this go ahead. Read on.
Years ago, there was a huge footbridge with steps that went from the northern end of Milford beach and climbed up into the cliff to join a track to go to Inga / Beach Rd. Over the years, the bridge fell into a state of disrepair and in the late 60’s -early 70’s was deemed unsafe and demolished with a promise from the council that it would be replaced at a future date.
Time marched on and the Milford Mariners Society and Milford Cruising club members developed the marina to where it is today with about 200 boats with jettys, power and water.
Along came a few people from Castor Bay who couldn’t be bothered walking around the marina to get to the beach and had the council drag out the “promise” to renew the bridge.
This “replacement” is a mechanical bridge which they intend to operate remotely which is very different from what was there and with all the best intentions, will break down. When it does, it will become a safety issue, not to mention the costs in running it.
Anyway, how it works – Boaties are supposed to radio in to Viaduct Harbour to have the bridge opened when they want to leave or enter the creek. There will be alarms to “warn” people off the bridge which will be heard all around the Milford basin.
Most mariners will tell you that Milford creek is a nightmare to enter in anything from an easterly quarter in more that 15 -20 odd knots with the swell. If the bridge fails to open, there would be mayhem with boats up each others chuff in the corner of the entrance with nowhere to go.
I’ve entered the channel several times in Rorqual when it has been quite rough after a holiday weekend or two and once you’re committed to enter, there is no turning back. It is simply too narrow with rocks on both sides with the swell coming from behind. This makes it incredibly hard to steer until you get well into the creek. It is a safety issue which I think the council has largely ignored.
I understand the cost before construction started was already at $1m with talkfests and surveys. I reckon it’ll be at least $2-3 m before its finished.. all for a few people to walk to the beach.
We hear them say.. “ it won’t fail”. Those in Viaduct harbour will tell you about their bridge that “wouldn’t fail” that has failed regularly since it was installed which is why we are hearing talk about it being replaced.
Anyway .. as you can see, it is being built.
As a safety measure, they are constructing a pontoon which will require ongoing dredging (cost) just outside the bridge. On a busy holiday weekend with returning boats, this will be totally inadequate as it will only be big enough to hold about 4 vessels.
News Flash : A wee birdie tells me that the folk who open the bridge at Viaduct Harbour won’t work the Milford bridge as they have enough trouble getting folk off the Viaduct bridge before opening, let alone try to do Milford remotely.. What now ?
Who would have thought that by the end of the day we would have thunder, rain and hail. I went upstairs today to be greeted with this amazing view.
These have been taken on a camera as opposed to a cell phone.
Click on the images to see the detail.
Andrew couldn’t have set this up any better. After handing our Whalechaser Rorqual to the next generation, Alex and Andrew, Andrew has managed to get a house where he can see the boat lying in his bed out of the window!
The Dethleff Owners meeting is on this weekend at Miranda which I’m looking froward too. Look out for plenty of images from that.
On friday afternoon, I left the NZMCA park at Ardmore and headed to my son and daughter in laws driveway in Ardmore where I was later joined by Fiona after she had finished work.
My son Alex is a Systems Engineer and has been working on a solution for Wifi in our motorhome for some time. He was given an directional Antenna which has a range of up to 5k and for being top in his course, he was given a tiny Router which will work on 12v and also has enough grunt to drive the Antenna. … and he was happy to donate it to my Wifi cause.. thanks Alex 🙂
I didn’t realise how much setup was involved but after a lot of configuration changes, he managed to get it working in the van with huge throughput from an Access point in his shed, some distance away.
While there is some fine tuning to be done, the concept works. I think his plan is to change the Antenna to one that’s easier to setup and get working when its permanently mounted on the roof. While we’re testing it, we had the router on our bed with a network cable out of our window with the antenna bolted to the bike rack.
I have an account with Spark and have the free gig a day thing happening from the phone boxes but they’re always positioned where you can’t park an 8m motorhome anywhere near them, and the signal they send means you’ve virtually got to sit on top of them to be any use.
Ultimately, it’ll mean that our iphones, ipads, laptops etc will log in to the wee router permanently in the van and the router with the Antenna will drag in the signal from wherever.
This system will hopefully mean that I can be a block or so away and still get a Spark signal or any other free wifi available 🙂
Exciting times.
While waking up this morning to another nice sunny day, I thought I should head out to Kawakawa Bay and have a cup of tea while the cockle gatherers were doing their thing. It’s also a bit more interesting that watching small planes come and go for another day. 💤
There were plenty of gatherers there too, making the most of the weather and getting down to business.
While there, I met an interesting couple with their newly built Motorhome who were trying to retire after giving their lifelong printing business to their adult children. There was a problem with a machine so they’d been summoned from their break down by Kaiaua, to sort it out! It was interesting swapping notes on how our respective but similar business’s had changed over the years with technology and changes in the economy.
After an hour or so there, I headed back to Ardmore. As I went through Clevedon, I kept seeing these signs saying “historic place 400m” so decided to check it out.
It turns out that the Wairoa River in Clevedon was quite a bustling place. There were warehouses, a sawmill and several other businesses on both sides of the river. They even towed barges with planes on them during the war from Hobsonville via “Port Clevedon” to hangers in Ardmore. Really interesting.
I had a quick walk around Clevedon before heading back to Ardmore MCA park for the afternoon.
When I returned, I found my next door neighbour in the middle of the grass, under his Toyota Landcruiser doing a lube and oil! A caravanner saving some money. Isn’t it funny what people choose to do on a hot day😎
After hearing the great news yesterday that our property manager Downee received a contract from new tenants, I thought I’d celebrate by cruising down to NZMCA’s Ardmore Park at the Ardmore Airfield. We know where we’re going now after the false start from “the mad woman that was living in France”!
No sooner had I arrived, I met Roger who we met last year filling up his new AutoTrail Delaware with fresh water. It was nice to see him again and there is a plan to catch up for a cold one later.
Roger and Marion had the unique experience of having a 90 ish yr old woman beating their then brand new Motorhome with a broom in the middle of the night on the Devonport waterfront😱. There was amazingly no damage done. The police were called and apparently she has form for giving anyone a hard time that parks in front of their B&B! So when in Devonport with your Motorhome, watch out for a mad 90 something year old with a broomstick. 😳
It is a busy park but we suspect that because the nearby freedom camping area at Bruce Pullman park has a fireworks display on, that there more here.
Tomorrow I’ll get the bike out and have a ride around and see what I can find.
Alex and Sarah and the grandkids are next door to the airfield so might see them tomorrow too.
What a great start to a great day. At 4:30am, we were up ready to watch the All Blacks perform their magic. What a great game.
Don’t forget you can click on these images to see them in their full glory
At 7:30 we drove around the corner to pick up friends Alan and Grant and headed up to Bayswater Marina where Alan keeps his 1920 Lanes classic boat Raindance.
Alan runs a blog called Waitematawoodys.com check it out.
Alan had already prepared Raindance for the trip so within 15 minutes or so, we were leaving the marina and heading for Lucas Creek. Once we passed under the Harbour Bridge, Grant was preparing the Heart starters for the day, Bloody Mary cocktails for us all. Within half of a Bloody Mary, Fiona was really enjoying herself!
The weather was perfect and the sea was calm and an hour or so later, we were at the meeting point of Lucas Creek. There we were met by several other Classic boats and we lead the way up the river to the Riverhead Hotel, where they were expecting us for brunch.
We were met at the Riverhead Hotel by several other Classic boaties who had arrived by car.
As always, the Hotel had turned on a good spread and it was nice to spend an hour or two meeting up with old friends with their Classic Boats. Although, it wasn’t a big turnout it was nice to see them there.
The last few times that we had taken Rorqual up to Riverhead, we have had up to 28 classic boats but the RWC and the Auckland Marathon probably put a few off.
As the tide turned, we left the Hotel to make sure we could get out of the river before it ran out of water and returned back to Bayswater. A great day with some great people with their nice boats.
The packers came, picked up all the furniture and all our stuff in boxes and delivered it to our room in Milford. It was quite straight forward when you watch the pros doing it!
We wondered how it was all going to fit in and with a few changes with our furniture, it all has.
The new room has a fantastic view of Milford Marina. In just an hour if watching from the veranda, there were about 6 boat movements of people I knew or knew of from my previous life as a wooden boatee!
A cleaner came in today and cleaned the house ready for a tenant and a bin arrived fir the last if the rubbish. There are about 4 boxes of pantry and a few clothes and we’re out.
We’re joining Our friend Alan on his launch Raindance on Sunday for a trip up the river with the Classic Boat Association so I’ll get some piccies of that on Monday.
World Cup final on Sunday..go the All Blacks!
Bugger It, we are off - www.buggeritweareoff.com 
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