Innholdsfortegnelse for July - August 2022 i RV Travel Lifestyle

Brrr! We are in the grips of a lovely cold snap with half the South Island covered in snow, and some areas down to -10.5 degrees. Definitely need your thermals on down there. Glad it wasn’t that cold for the motorhome show in May. We were lucky the clouds cracked open over that weekend and we actually saw some sunshine. I didn’t mention in my editorial last issue, but I had been struck down with shingles the week before going to print. I was hospitalised with the pain, which arrived five days before a rash appeared from mid-back to mid-stomach. A long, painful, drawn out 10 weeks later I have just experienced my first pain-free day this last week, thanks to some not so cool pain-blocker meds. Thank the Lord…

From our clean, comfortable cabin at Whangārei’s Top 10 Holiday Park we planned our assault on Mount Parihaka. Fear of having to isolate away from home if we contacted Covid meant we haven’t done too much travelling lately, but we’re now in Covid Orange, case numbers seem to be dropping and we’re going a bit stir-crazy. Besides that, Whangārei’s not far from our home in the Far North for a first trip. Once the largest pā in the area, Mount Parihaka dominates the city skyline, and the tall, slender war memorial, built in 1956 to commemorate local WW11 fallen, is sited right at the top. At night the peak of the memorial and the crosses, one on each of its four sides can be seen glowing red from throughout the…

PAPAROA TRACK GREAT WALK Last March we (a group of Hamiltonians) walked the Heaphy Track, known for being the longest of the Great Walks. After completing it we all decided to look for another walk to tackle. One of the group had heard about a new walk which had recently been added to the list of New Zealand Great Walks, a four-day hike through the Paparoa National Park. This park, located between Westport and Greymouth offers a number of excellent walks such as so the Tasman/West Coast area is very much the mecca for hiking, running and biking. The Paparoa Track was opened in December 2019 and is purpose built, providing shared use for bikers and trampers. The walk crosses the Paparoa ranges between Blackball and Punakaiki through alpine tops,…

COOK BOOK TO BE WON FITWAFFLE’S Baking It Easy Eloise Head Publisher Ebury Press RRP $48.00 Scan QR code below or email Subject line Road Kai to subs@rvmagazine.co.nz Give us your full contact details and which recipe shown here you will try first. Entries close 30 August 2022 WINNER ROAD KAI VOL 15 A Hows Rotorua Lemonies Makes 16 These lemonies have all the gorgeous, zesty flavours of a lemon drizzle cake with a fudgy texture. They’re bursting with tangy lemon, with a fresh, sugary glaze on the top, which is definitely a must for me when it comes to anything lemon. They are easy to make and bake, and ideal for a relaxed, sunny day. Enjoy them at an afternoon tea or picnic, or even pop them into lunch…

I decided that I would have some major items fitted by Ovaland (a bus conversion specialist in Hamilton) to save time and to ensure that these major things were installed correctly – the 3.5m Thule awning, 400mm roof vent, two 120W solar panels, the water inlet and 230V power inlet. Ovaland measured up, supplied and fitted both fresh and grey water tanks and their holding frames along with the pipework. As mentioned previously, after these items were fitted they then sprayed underneath with underseal. With a floor now in place it was possible to work on the interior more easily. My inside jobs began by packing insulation into the bus side cavities – accessed by unclipping the hardboard panels. I found standard Knauf Earthwool the easiest to work with and…

When I started tramping all the Great Walks for the Great Hikes App, part of me knew it’d be a slog. While it’s a once in a lifetime journey to hike all of NZ’s premier walking tracks, my ‘comfort self ’ was outraged. I could almost hear it saying ‘how dare you put me through a month’s worth of trudging around with all this mapping gear? Torment me with 30-odd unpowered hut nights, and leave me several weeks without showering?’ However, into the wilderness I walked, silencing those inner voices with every enriching step I took. Yet the completion of these premier tracks was not the end of my great walking as I planned to add a range of private walks to the app. This was when my ‘comfort self…

In late summer last year I faced up to, and conquered, a personal fear – the fear of driving solo from Piano Flat in northern Southland to Shingle Creek via the infamous Waikaia Bush track. I had been warned – “never attempt it by yourself, there are too many places you will get stuck.” It certainly was a challenge, but we made it. When you are doing four-wheel driving, it’s not so much the boulders, river crossings or steep ascents and descents that are the concern because commonsense should prevail. No, the villain is mud – it’s so unpredictable. And mud was the reason I had never attempted another of the legends of Central Otago trails – the Serpentine. The Serpentine was one of those early, boom and bust, Otago…

To enter email the book title as subject to: subs@rvmagazine.co.nz or post to: NZTRV Vol 17 Books, PO Box 220, Martinborough 5711 with your full details, and go in the draw to win. Closes 30 August 2022 to enter online The Premonition: A Pandemic Story Allen Lane RRP $55 Penguin The Premonition is the extraordinary story of a group who anticipated, traced and hunted the coronavirus; who understood the need to think differently, to learn from history, to question everything; and to do all of this fast, in order to act, to save lives, communities, society itself. It’s a story about the workings of the human mind; about the failures and triumphs of human judgement and imagination. It’s the story of how we got to now. It’s In The Post!…

To watch videos of Caspar’s adventures visit his facebook page or watch on YouTube Caspar’s capers Woof woof readers Brrrr … it’s chilly today! I hopped into bed with mama and papa this morning, so cosy in there. “Lucky we’re not in the South Island Caspie, it is frozen solid down there,” arf arf that doesn’t sound good. We have had a busy time, lots of driving in the motorhome with some stays in Martinborough. Gardening and painting work to be done, mama said, and that big pile of firewood must be stacked away. I helped papa with that, great fun as he threw bits for me to fetch. I ran around the backyard for ages – yip yip yippeee. I could tell we were on the move again with…

To find the park drive 20 minutes north of Kaitaia on the main road, then down 3km of gravel on a side road. The gravel provides atmosphere. You’re driving into history. I always enjoy visiting. I called in recently to chat with the family who has been there for four generations. Patrick Heath bought the property in 1904 and his descendants are still there. Or so I thought. But no. Warwick Harvey greeted me. “We’re new,” he said. “My wife and I have been here for eight weeks.” Irene introduced herself and invited me to sit down. Keen to leave Auckland after almost 30 years working as a chartered accountant (Warwick) and managing a surgeon’s practice (Irene) they spotted the property online and bought it without even visiting. They’re adventurous…

What to do if your partner is determined to do a full figure-of-eight circumnavigation of New Zealand during the summer on your yacht, Champagne? What if you’re none too keen on overnight coastal passages in our oft-times stern seas? Your little three-legged dog neither. Why, you and Ziggy the dog bundle into a campervan and follow Champagne – a fine and seaworthy Cavalier 45 design – all around the country, to meet up and catch up on nautical yarns in the safety of marina berths at ports of call. Best of both worlds! This is exactly how Lisa Bennett approached the adventure provided by the Island Cruising Club. All this, despite the durned Covid-thaing – which buggers up the best-laid plans, as it did for the Island Cruising Club, a…

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Motorhome shortages, electric vehicle issues, and are there enough campsite pitches? As we reach the mid-point of the year, everyone in the UK has been enjoying the good weather and long hours of daylight well past 9pm, the jolly Royal Platinum Jubilee celebrations, and the start of the countdown to the school summer holidays next month. Now that Covid travel restrictions have been relaxed, many people will be looking forward to packing their motorhomes and caravans and crossing the channel for much-missed destinations in Europe – but will there be enough campsite pitches for everyone? Maybe not. According to Ramon van Reine, the CEO of ACSI Publishing, the camping specialist with one of Europe’s biggest and most popular campsite booking services, the number of campsite pitches available has actually reduced…