Sleepin Around New Zealand: First Trip and More!

[Sheddie]

It has been so long since I have spent much time on the forum that I didn't realize how far behind I was with our travel reports. We have had a rather busy time over the last year or so, too many other distractions and unfortunately not a lot of camping time. I finally got around to getting the photos of the Taranaki trip off the camera only a few days ago.
I must also apologies to the people who I had not replied to in the last few replies.

Sounds like fun, and boy howdy that's a nice portion of avocado on that salad!

through summer it is salads most nights and we usually split half an avocado.

They were $6.00 each at the supermarket yesterday!

Usually we get them at the road side stands for a doller or two, or maybe three at the supermarket.

Wow fantastic seeing all those old British cars.My brother worked on the dies that made the Ford Capri and Classics at Dagenham. It's a shame so many British car companies went under. Nice to see some Chryslers as well. My brother and I both worked at the Swindon plant that made bodies for Austin, Morris Farina body styles and Triumph 2000 MG Jaguar etc We both retired from Chrysler in the USA.

We enjoy our older cars and it is quite amazing how many large and small collections there are scattered around NZ.

Come to chch
I got 126lb of bait last season

We even share it with the cat

1 lb of bait, 1 egg per person

yum. We used to get them when we were camping on the boat in the Bay of Islands and Whangaroa.

[dales133]

Whangaroa. Probably my fav place ever

Sent from my SM-N910G using Tapatalk

[Sheddie]

Anywhere on Northlands east coast in a boat has to be heaven

[Sheddie]

Ford Capri Car Club Summer Camp February 2016.
Before I got interupted by work related things I had started to fill you in on our trip to Taranaki for the Ford Capri Car Club Summer Camp February 2016.
Taranaki (or "The Naki" as it is commonly referred to) is the big sticky out bit on the North Islands west coast, the centre of this is the volcanic Mount Egmont/Taranaki.
It is an area that we have not been to very much, so we were looking forward to the trip.
I had knocked off work early so that we could head off on the Thursday late afternoon. We stopped off at Albany to drop the dogs off with their grandparents, then headed on to Hamilton for an overnight at the camp there.

The idea for Friday morning was, going back to the Hamilton gardens to look through the parts we had not seen when we were there at christmas. Unfortunately rain was on its way, so we packed up camp and headed on south.
We stopped at Te Awamutu to meet up with some of the others and travel down in convoy. We waited there for quite a while and then received a message that one of the cars had broken down and they would all be running late, so we headed on to arrive to the camp and get ourselves set up before the rain front got that far south.



Part of the trip is over Mount Messenger, a tight and twisty road with a lot of the corners having recommend speed signs at 25 kilometers per hour.
The scenery through here is beautiful with lots of native bush. The government is looking at bypassing this part of state highway 3 to take the road away from the little single lane tunnel (above) which restricts some load sizes, and also avoid the climb over Mt Messenger (below). This may be the last time we get to follow this route.




We found our way to the camp and got our selves set up before the rain arrived, fortunately that wasn't until later in the evening.
The camp is called Vertical Horizons and is in the hills out the back of Inglewood.

The rest of the club were staying in the bunk rooms and it sounds like it was just as well we took our own comfortable bed with us.

[Sheddie]

Ford Capri Car Club Summer Camp February 2016.
Saturday morning we headed off for a drive through the countryside. First stop was to visit a gentleman with a nice big property with beautiful lawns and gardens, and some sheds full of cars.
We parked our cars on the lawn in the shade of the palm tree.

mk1 Capri, Ford jail bar pick up (Lexus powered) mk2 Ford Consul 375 Estate.

Capris; mk2, mk1, mk3.

This Austin A60 had obviously been parked there for a while.

Just inside the door to the first shed were the motorised kiddy cars, a race car, an AC Cobra, and the yellow one is a hot rod.

This shed housed mainly European these being Austin A60 Farina and Austin A 40 Devon

Rolls Royce

I loved this painting of Austins and Morris' and a sole Simca in a wreckers yard.

VW Cabriolet and Triumph Stag

This old Morris Commercial truck was mint but took a bit of getting in and out of as the doors are on an angle at the rear corners of the cab. The idea was apparantly to make it easier to get in and out when parked in confined spaces.

[Sheddie]

Ford Capri Car Club Summer Camp February 2016.
Saturday afternoon we were back at the camp for lunch, then it was time to find out why this place is called Vertical Horizons.

They took us out into a paddock with a whole lot of poles and ropes.

Apparantly they thought some of us would be mad enough to either try walking on the ropes, you gotta be joking

or climb up the poles, stand on the top, then jump off.


Actually, they were supposed to jump across and grab hold of the trapeze which was just out of reach.
I put this idea somewhere akin to jumping out of a perfectly good aeroplane

Silly thing was that there were some that were prepared to try it. Made my feet go all tingly just watching
Dale had already left, heading off to our next activity, archery.
After that we all headed in to Inglewood, to the small bore rifle club for a bit of shooting.

[Sheddie]

Ford Capri Car Club Summer Camp February 2016.
We were all back at the camp that evening for dinner and socialising, then out came the motorised chilly bins (bear coolers, ice boxes, eskies, or whatever you want to call them) for a bit of racing.


As so often happens all was going well until the spirit of the occasion and an inexperienced chilly bin driver come together and threw a dampener on the event, with a kissing of the concrete.

Fortunatly we had an ambulance officer and a nurse in our members who came to her rescue.
Enough said about that, but just another example for not mixing wine and wheels.

[KCStudly]

I was about to say good times... right up until the end. But it still looks like a lot of fun for most.

[Sheddie]

Hi KC, yes it put a bit of a dampner on things for a while. And we didn't see much of the chilly bins after that.

[Sheddie]

Ford Capri Car Club Summer Camp February 2016.
Sunday morning we were off for a mystery tour through the countryside.
Part of the drive included this historic bridge. As we approached there were big signs outlining the load capacity of the bridge. I think we were all a bit cautious about having more than one car at a time on the bridge.


Our destination for this part of the run was at "Castle Ford". A small private collection of old Fords, they were all restored to perfection by the owner.




This one had all the panels hand made in the workshop area in the other half of the basement garage.

This recreation of a 1930s camper van was absolutely amasing


There is a stainless steel sink bench to the right and a fold out bed up front. There is a water tank mounted in the roof above the settee which is filled through a cap outside on the roof. the water then gravity feeds to the tap over the sink.

[pchast]

Beautiful.... Thanks for the Pictures.

[Sheddie]

Beautiful.... Thanks for the Pictures.

Hi Pete, thanks again for your reply.
I have been a bit slack about getting these loaded. The camera has been sitting in the corner of the office desk, just needed plugging in to the computer. I have been taking most of my photos with the tablet lately and it automatically loads to dropbox. Other problem is too many projects happening at present.

[KCStudly]

Another great trip report!

[Sheddie]

Thanks KC, you had better tell your mother to look at the next lot of photos I have ready to go

[Sheddie]

Ford Capri Car Club Summer Camp February 2016.
On the other side of the basement garage is the workshop area where the cars were restored. To the rear of the workshop is the wife's domain.
Here are some examples of the beautiful handcraft she does. They certainly are a talented couple.







Meanwhile outside, this guy was saying, "don't just stand there patting me, keep feeding me the apples".

We headed on to Waitara and parked down by the river for a group photo then in to town for lunch.