Leaving Thames after a great few days cruising around the Coromandel Peninsula with plenty of time of my hands. I had all day to get home but just before Pipiroa, I started seeing signs for the Bugger café. Well with the Toyota Bugger ad having just been judged one of the all time top ads and the name of this blog, I just had to stop and check it out and I wasn’t to be disappointed.
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Big Carpark
A huge carpark in front and although it was busy with cars, there were plenty of big spaces to make easy parking for a large motorhome like Rafe.
Rafe snuggled into a park
I stopped to take some piccies outside and wandered in to a big cheery welcome from owner, Glenda and her team.. nothing beats a great welcome.
Nice food, nice people, reasonable pricing and lots of Bugger bits around the wall encouraging good humour. Their line is “Laugh a little” which you can see everywhere and its infectious.
I bought a Bugger Tshirt and a Bugger Motorhome Rug called the Bugger Rug for Fiona. Lots of fun and neat people.
Glenda and John also have a Bugger café in Tirau.
On our way North, we stopped in at Warkworth. It’s been a while since I’ve been to Warkworth as its one of those towns that you tend to drive through rather than stop at and it never disappoints.
Remember to click on the images for Hi Res or a slideshow
The River
We parked down by the river where there is one big Motohome park which Rafe fits in like a glove. It must be 7.6m long 🙂
Our carpark by the river
We went for a walk along the river side and then around to a French cafe in the town. I couldn’t believe how many Cafes and Real Estate agents there are in Warkworth. The Cafes are pretty much all next door to each other too.
New Seating
The main street
After a nice lunch, we went for a walk around the shops and then we headed back down to the river to Rafe.
It’s all looking very nice. The council have done a great job with local business’s contributing to the costs. It seem to be enjoyed by many while we were there and is a really nice place for lunch or just a stopping off point.
Motorhome Parking
There is also motorhome parking at the end of the main shopping road within walking distance to the river.
Heading back to Auckland after a great weekend in the Helensville area, we stopped at a place called Provenance which we’d been to before a long time ago when it was Beesonline.
The Parking
A huge carpark which makes it easy to get a Motorhome into and a very park like environment with a bridge to get to the Café.
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When we went there, there had been thunderstorms the night before and the weather had been misbehaving badly so the pictures don’t show it at its best.
Nice outdoor area
I imagine their outdoor areas would be nice in the sunshine. It was also really interesting to see they had a huge garden where they grow a lot of there own veges and herbs.
Someone knows how to grow Lemons!
They also have about 10 or so absolutely laden Lemon trees. Someone here knows what they’re doing.
Looking from the Carpark
The Garden
The Garden
The Entrance
Great Fireplace
The Bar
You can see your van from the cafe
There was a big fire raging when we got there and it was all very warm and toasty inside despite the weather and we sat down and ordered some lunch.
Corrugated Cow on the roof
As I was still nursing my implanted tooth, I went for a mushroom penne type of meal and Fiona had the same. It was just amazing.
When it was Beesonline, it was very popular and its good to see the same high standards still apply. They still have some hives out the back too.
Bees out the back
If you’re heading out west to Muriwai or beyond, it is just on the left before you get to Waimauku on the main road.
Before we enjoyed a great lunch at the Helensville Railway Station Cafe, we visited the Helensville Train Museum right next door.
Run by the Helensville Railway Station Trust by volunteers, this is well worth checking out.
Helensville Railway Station with the Museum behind
There is a gigantic model railway based on Helensville, even replicating well know local buildings and known points. There is even a little orange sign that says, “You are Here” 🙂
The chap that built the model spent 30 years putting it together.
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Helensville Station. Note the pub in the backgroundThe Pub over the road
After spending an hour or so, checking it all out, one of the volunteers came over and said to me, “come and check this out, I’ll demonstrate it for you”.
There were two red boxes with buttons and bells.
This was The Tyers Tablet system which railways in both Great Britain and New Zealand used up until 1994 on single lines to prevent head on collisions.
It involved a sophisticated coded bell system with switches with electromagnetic locks that allows a small disk, a Tablet, to be released for a train driver when the line is clear. The system was setup between railway stations at each end of a line.
All Packed
Given that it was setup in the dark old days of bleeps over the phone lines, it’s a clever system. Helensville Railway Museum is the only one that we know of still in working order and when you think of what it had to do and when it was invented, it’s pretty clever.
If you want more info on this, Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the Tyers Tablet system and here’s a youtube vid of the Helensville setup being explained.
The Railway Station in 1910
An old train at the station
Fiona in the ticket office
The two volunteers there were only too happy to show me everything at the museum and couldn’t have been more helpful. It’s a must do if you’re in town.
It’s $3.00 each and well worth it.
Helensville is a neat little town and after spending a nice afternoon in the Hot Pools at Parakai, we took Rafe in for a nosey around.
We’ve been to the Railway Station before we had Rafe and it has a fantastic cafe which is where the original NZ Railways cafe was.
The Railway Station in 1910
There is also a antique shop run by a nice lady who once lived in Auckland but escaped to Helensville a long time ago!
The Railway Station is owned by the Helensville Railway Trust and they’ve recently just done up the building including the loos. There is plenty of parking so it’s an easy place to park your Motorhome.
Just a friendly reminder, click on the images for hi res or a slideshow.
It was time for lunch so to the cafe. Still being ultra nice to my front tooth, I had to skip some of the real bready lunches and had a “Train smash” I think it was called which was basically a full breakfast.. Very nice. Fiona had an Angus beef burger.
My “Trainsmash”Fiona’s Angus Burger
On the wall is a great photo of the staff at that particular time. Looking at the gear, they’re wearing, I’d say it’s late 1800’s or early 1900’s.
NZR café staff in the early 1900’s . The lady in the middle was the manager who recently had her 90th birthday at the Café.
The woman in the middle was in charge at the time and she recently celebrated her 90th birthday at the Cafe. A great story.
There are some really interesting pictures on the wall, one which looks like it might have been in France where a train jumped out of a wall on a second story. Oops!
Oops. Seen on the wall.
Helensville Railway Station with the Museum behind
In the Antique Shop
Antiques
Fiona at the counter in the cafe
The cafe
The outside Cafearea
Post office
The BNZ building
Rafe in the main street
After having a look around, we stopped for a look at the shops in the Main Street.
Main Street
Some interesting buildings, everywhere you look you see history.
We were on our way home from Taupo after catching up with friends and we’d had a warning that the whole of the country was in for the bash from the weather.
The Café with the Motorhomes at the back
Thunderstorms and strong winds meant hunkering down on some gravel with some power. Years ago when we had wee Rafe, the caravan, we stopped at a café in Pirongia which had some Motorhome parking on gravel out the back.
This sounded like a good destination and we would easily be there before the weather nailed us around 6pm.
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The RV Park
We arrived with plenty of time, plugged in and decided to go for a walk into town for a look around before the rain hit. We’d just arrived in a café in town when the heavens opened up. Fortunately it was just a shower so we still had time to check the Alexandra Constabulary Redoubt which was a fort on a small hill overlooking the town. It has dug trenches around almost like a moat and is well worth a look. It also happens to be right over the road from the Persimmon Café RV park where we were staying the night.
On our way to town
The redoubt with the town behind. You can see the RV park with the grey building.
The redoubt, Pirongia behind
Mt Pirongia behind
The ablutions
The parking
A nicely set up RV park but it is really a carpark with powerpoints and a toilet block. The cost for us was $25 for the night. $10 for us and $15 for the power. If we wanted to use the onsite dump station, that would be another $15 and the showers another $5 each.
It was explained that the dump station had to be emptied on a regular basis and trucked into Te Awamutu hence the charge.
My thinking was that although it wasn’t waterfront or top ten standard, it was perfect for sheltering for the night or passing through. It is also very central with the town only a few minutes walk away.
We decided to use the free dump station at Drury as we were heading that way but there is also a free one at Te Awamutu and we used our own shower.
Not a big park but perfect for passing through.
It was nice being on the gravel and plugged in as the weather really laid it on. Lightening and thunder and lots of rain. It was an interesting night with some good puffs of wind and plenty of action from the sky but we felt nicely tucked in and sheltered.
Pirongia is a nice wee town and there is heaps of history there. Its well worth checking out the redoubt. The town is spoilt for choice for motorhome parking with the Clydesdale Café and if you’re an NZMCA member, at the Golf Course just on the outskirts of town.
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.
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.
Bugger It, we are off - www.buggeritweareoff.com 
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