Life on the road is good. First there are no time frames. Now that is a hard one to accept. Been running to clocks all our lives & now ” its our time & when we feel like it”.
We have been in Alexandra for 2 weeks. Met lots of nice & interesting people who are stopping over for a few nights in what we lIke to call ‘our place’. Had some interesting conversations with people who have worked on the road while travelling, so Wayne is now armed & ready to get a job. Unfortunately, our highlight for the past 2 weeks is our fridge!!! It had been going fine on gas as it always has & then it stopped. Our hosts kindly gave us power & a fridge freezer to put our stuff in & then experiments began. To not bore you all senseless, the upshot is that no one in the area wishes to touch 3-way fridges & after getting an appointment in Queenstown with a gas company we packed up camp last Monday & headed off to only get 15 minutes down the gorge road & got the call to say the employee was sick that day….#$@@!! Carried onto Cromwell & had coffee & breakfast & took a chill pill. Back to camp & set up again. I had the bright idea the next morning to try the fridge again & it went! It was all the tossing around on the road that maybe dislodged something. Thinking we were safe to leave it going, we headed off to Queenstown minus the caravan the next day & had a lovely couple of days with Barry & Carol Mills at their lovely holiday home in Queenstown. The views are amazing & the hospitlaity just as amazing. Headed home via Arrowtown & took a look at the shotover river thrill seeking adventures. No trips for us as we both have done it before. Was concerned Wayne wanted to do white water rafting, but he said no & I breathed again. Arrived back to camp to find the fridge had stopped while we were away. OK that ends my career as a refrigeration engineer, appointment made with a Dunedin RV company for Tuesday next week for a service & diagnosis & let that be the end of this. Upshot of this is Wayne will look for work after the fridge is sorted. He does not appear concerned about being unemployed!!!!!
Oh yes another delemna is our electric toothbrush charger has decided to stop!! First world problem as Wayne would say.
Things we have been doing:
1 kayak in double kayak on Lake Dunstan…winds came up & not pleasant so aborted that exercise. – Biking on a daily basis, either going to the recycling & getting rid of rubbish & getting a coffee. Washing in backpack to laundromat & getting a coffee, just simply riding for a coffee. Walking daily, mostly to the cafe (5km round trip). I intend to start swimming at local pool in next week or so. YES there is a coffee theme going on. ☕☕ Of course Wayne has started running, no real hills around us but enjoying the dip in the river before coming home. Wayne also did a return 40km ride to Chatto Creek on the rail trail. I was busy at the time!!!
Hosts have a dog called Maddy, she is my friend. Picture attached. It’s true!!!
Incidents along the way that may be funny for one of us ……. happy hours tend to happen around here daily, sometimes starting way before 5pm. You pick up your chair & drink & gather wherever everyone is. One night we did not take our chairs but used a fellow campers & Wayne, he states he did nothing untoward, fell through the chair canvas ending up folded up in the frame. Now I don’t mean to laugh, but you had to be there. We did show care & concern after we got over the funny side of it!!! We were not allowed to replace the chair with a new one. Nice people are found on the road of travelling gypsies!
Walking on the rail trail can be hazardess as there is a golf course adjacent to the trail and once we had a golf ball sail right in front of us, so hence we stop & watch the golfers tee off to avoid concussion or worse. Entertaining for us!!!! Sorry to all you golfers out there.
I’ve been to my first book club….always wondered if they read books or discussed them?? Annette, our host asked if I would like to go one Tuesday night. It goes like this, you drive to the local Monteiths pub, order a glass of wine, put some books in the middle of the table, general chat for 5 mins about what’s good to read etc then 12 womens start talking all at once about anything. Great night out!! Those of you who know me so well will laugh when I worked out who was me in the group…yes the bossy one or organizer whose name was Barbara.
We’ve been over to Annette & Roberts home for a meal. Coffee at new Industry Lane Cafe on rail trail (our local). Breakfast at Clyde at Olivers Cafe (biked there). Lunched at old Cromwell Town (drove there). Monteith Pub for dinner with Graham & Jenny Savell from Tauranga. Wayne & Graham worked together in ANZ days some 25 years ago. They also stayed at Dunstan Road in their motorhome next to our abode that night.
Bits of interest ( this is mainly for us as a record of our adventure) – 1 machine wash costs $4 & time of 25 min. Soap powder supplied. Coffee $5 each. Free Range eggs $5 on roadside. Blueberries down the road & fruit in abundance in Cromwell & other areas at roadside stalls. New bike pedals for Wayne & new column for my handlebars so I’m sitting up a bit straighter. Need to keep me happy so I will continue biking. So many E bikes around!!!! Slowly replacing broken glasses & have ordered a new lightweight dinner set online to be delivered to us in Alex. Looks just like the real thing not malamine or plastic, so anything to get the weight out of the caravan. We will be boxing up our one & dropping it off in the lockup going through Blenheim & I’m sure there will be lots more staying behind.
My car was sold last Friday. Thrilled it did not take long, so watch out for that speedy blue Holden Barina RS all you people of Blenheim, its back on the road…mind you I have no idea who bought it!!! It could be anywhere.
Of course I am working hard & the rent money is coming in, so that is keeping Wayne in a lifestyle he appears to be enjoying far too much. Will report in once he has taken up employment.
Hope you are all well & life is treating you right. Stay safe, till next time.
The Travelling Gypsies…aka, Wayne & Sue xx