Hit the Road, Jack!

Thursday 12 December

And finally the day dawned… we woke in cousin Ian’s flat in Quay West, having stayed in town after Amy's birthday party (mainly because the beds were all in storage at the Big Blue House, so there was nowhere to lay our weary heads!)

Excited, we headed out early to Te Atatu to pick up Banjo, then sadly realised that all our food (and more importantly, my expensive medicine) was still in the fridge at Quay West so after extracting Banjo from her temprary home (which was far easier than reversing her in there!) Liesje very kindly drove me back to Quay West, while Louis took Banjo for a last minute quick fix in New Lynn… which turned out not to be so quick!

I took an Uber home to do the last clearing, cleaning & packing before Louis showed up with Banjo so we loaded the bikes and final bits & bobs, before closing the door on our home for the last 15 years - which was quite emotional.

We said goodbye to big Gino and Ayesha next door (Ayesha and Mike will be our property managers while we are away), then on the dot of noon we pulled out of Endeavour Street and left Blockhouse Bay.

It was a grey and soggy day which was not an auspicious start to our big Odyssey, but at least it wasn't windy, so the first big towing journey turned out to be less of a challenge thann expected. After stopping at Papatoetoe service station for a mediocre lunch then in Tirau for an awesome manuka honey & fig gelato for me, we finally arrived at Ngongotaha around 4pm and set up Banjo in precisely 10 minutes flat!

Run by the NZMCA, this campsite was quite simple and functional, but had heaps of space, and fresh water which was good as the water through our pipes/tanks tasted a bit funky! We were joined a little later by Abby & Jeremy in their moho - poor Jez was still on a work call when we opened our first celebratory bottle of bubbles, but we toasted our new life on the road with him again later - thanks to Susan & Mark - and then settled in for our first night on the road… good night 💤