Karapiro & the Mighty Waikato

Saturday 2 August

Up early as a lovely couple from Whakatane were meeting us at the NZMCA to buy our tow tug (a large motorised wheel which helps manoeuvre chonky caravans - we’ve only used it twice in 7 months so decided to sell it on). Transaction concluded we had breakfast and packed up in a leisurely fashion then hit the road, ever further north.

Coffee & date scone stop in Tirau (taken all those corrugated iron sheep photos before so didn’t bother this time - and the gelato shop was closed for winter😲) then pushed on to Lake Karapiro. We had planned to freedom camp here but firstly the space was pretty boggy, and secondly I was unsure about our potential neighbour… the caravan in the photo with all the solar was accompanied by a hairy wizard creature sitting under a blanket draped like a cloak, but it was open in front and from my distance I’m pretty sure he was naked underneath 🫣

So we retired to the lakeside for a picnic, called a POP near Cambridge and decided to move on!

The Grape Escape POP was lovely - friendly owners (fully dressed!), 2 very affectionate griffon dogs, 6 cats and a gorgeous lifestyle block.

Added advantage - it was about half a km from the Te Awa River Ride cycle track so we got the bikes down and set off exploring. The track was awesome - 3m wide, concrete pad all along except for some wide wooden decking through woods and over streams - following the path of the mighty Waikato. We cycled to the velodrome and back and loved it!

Dinner in Banjo then binged Good Omens and tucked ourselves up in bed for the last time on the road for a couple of months! Next stop Auckland, a semi permanent home for a month or so with Mairi & Tim and Louis has his surgery on Friday.