Another chance to hit the Road

We were lucky enough to have been drawn as winners by Bluebridge when we responded to their customer satisfaction survey, resulting in us getting a sizable discount off our next Bluebridge fare. Only problem was it had to be redeemed by August 2023, so when our friendly housesitters, Sandra and Stephan offered us a housesit we decided to take up their offer, and head south again.

First though, we had a long awaited visit from Judy’s son Michael, his wife Lynn and grandson Jack, who live in Houston. It had been 5 years since their last visit and 3 years since we had been over to visit them. The visit became more complicated with the state of the Coromandel roads after Cyclone Gabrielle. That meant some of the planned activities, such as tramping the Pinnacles, were no longer possible. We made the best of things though.

First up was a trip to Lonely Bay. It was a beautiful day so we made the most of it.

The next day came the opportunity to take a trip on the Glass Bottom boat, (Thank you Steve and Stacey). That was a great trip as well. It was interesting to see the fish actually following the boat, and also the wasteland on the sea floor caused by kina.

Jack had the chance to do a few new things, such as making his own pizza, but his favorite activity seemed to be building lego creations with Grandad.

All too soon the short 4 day visit was over and they left for Hamilton, for a special function there. We decided to head to Hamilton also and had a great overnight stay at Altus and Letitia’s house on Saturday night.

The next day we headed to son Steve’s house for a barbeque lunch where all of my four children would be together in one place! Doesn’t happen often these days.

The two older grandchildren were not there, which was a shame, but the others all had a good time together.

I would have to mention that Steve was given a new smoker barbeque by Stacey, and the ribs that he presented from that were superb.

We headed for home the next day as we only had 3 days after that before our house sitters, Sandra and Stephan, were due to arrive. We had decided to leave our dogs, Hunter and Beau, with them this time. We thought we would take the opportunity to do some of the South Island activities where you could not take dogs. I am convinced that Hunter knew something was up, but Beau seemed completely oblivious.

Bruce spent the next few days installing two new house batteries into the motorhome, and I spent my time preparing the house and packing the motorhome.

We made the deadline with little time to spare, and by then the trip suddenly became REAL.