Heading North

We enjoyed a week in and around Houhora – relaxing, fishing, hooked up to power, with plenty of Internet access, and lots of great company. In particular thanx to Di, Gail and Marie for your company over the week at Houhora, it was great to meet such lovely women who also are living full time on the road. It just so happened that the three of them arrived at the camp independently over the week, although we had met Gail before a couple of years ago when we were in Lowburn, and Di we had met recently in Kerikeri, and Marie we had met in Kaitaia, we all got together each afternoon for drinks and a bit of a chatting. There were other campers who came and went over the week with a get together held each afternoon to swap fishing tales and the like. However, like all good things they must come to an end and we all headed off in separate directions, we headed back into Kaitaia for a couple of days

Here we can attend to lots of wee chores and get some shopping done to refill the pantry and fridge ready for the run north to Cape Reinga and the DoC camps at Tapotupotu, Spirits Bay and Rarawa.

It just so happens that it is my late sister-in-law Ann’s mother Beryl is celebrating her 94th birthday today, so we called in for a quick chat and the usual celebratory wishes. She does very well for a 94 year old, however, she tells us this birthday she is not renewing her drivers licence and is giving away her car!

We shall be leaving Kaitaia tomorrow morning (Thursday) and once we pass Houhora, there is no cell phone reception, no internet, no radio reception either so things shall be a little quiet for a couple of weeks as this will be our last post for a while. In the meantime, here are a couple of random photos.

The first is the final lot of poppies that were sent off to the Army museum

This is how the locals fix their car aerials, we have seen the usual coat hanger but never a fence standard!

And finally a sign seen locally – it was just missing an ‘R’ –

Enjoy the peace and quiet!

Before and after

Before

After

Says it all really!

Call to Yarn

The knitting needles have once again been out, this time to knit poppies. This is for a display to be held at the National Army Museum at Waiouru next year, the intention is to have one poppy on display for each serviceman and servicewoman who were killed during WWI – that is 18,166 poppies.

I found I had a few scraps of red wool in my stash along with a little of the black and green required. I have also been able to raid my button stash. The buttons are from Mum’s button tin, my family thought I was nuts when, clearing out our parents home earlier this year, I asked if I could have the button tin! This caused great mirth among some of my siblings, and in the words of Mum, thought I was completely doolally. But here they are being used for a good cause.

I found a couple of patterns and decided to give them all a go, and these are the result so far

Since taking these pictures, I have knitted a few more and will continue to add to them as it is a good opportunity to finish off scraps of wool for a good cause.

The Great War has great personal significance for us. Some of you will know, Roy’s father (also called Roy) was injured during WWI at Passchendaele, and his brother Luigi served and survived Gallipoli. Whilst we were in Europe we did go to find the place where Roy Snr was injured, you can read about that visit here Something as simple as knitting a few poppies is my contribution to the commemorations.

If anyone else is looking at contributing, here are the details

And the link at army museum will give you any further information.