On the road to Hastings

It was a perfect day for travelling, fine and sunny, and no noticeable wind to push the caravan around on the road.  Even the (dreaded) Manawatu Gorge caused no problems, with plenty of big, and then bigger again,  trucks hurtling around the corners at speed towards us.  We hope that these large vehicles keep to their own side of the road and don’t stray over the centre line.  I always breathe a sigh of relief once we are safely  through this stretch of road.  The kms slipped away under our wheels as we drove merrily along.  The Ruahine Ranges looked as pretty as a picture with a light dusting of snow covering the tops of the peaks, with cows grazing contentedly in the paddocks.

Snow capped  Ruahine Ranges

A bit further up the road we came to an abrupt stop behind a line of cars and trucks.  More cows – these ones were  being herded briskly along the busy road.  Then they were turned right and trotted happily up the farm race with visions of fresh pastures to tempt them.  Guess the cows don’t like being on the busy road any more than the motorists like finding them there.

Moving stock on the busy road

After all this excitement, we continued on our way, with a stop at the Waipukurau Station car-park for lunch.  My goodness, this was a chilly place, the wind must have been blowing straight off the snow on the mountains.  After lunch, I spotted a real bargain over the road at the veggie shop, and returned to the caravan with two nice big orange pumpkins for just $1 each - should get plenty of pumpkin soup out of my bargain buy.

Lunch at Waipukurau

We hadn’t travelled very far when we came across a traffic car parked on the side of the road,  red and blue lights  flashing.  Just as well the car was parked there to warn oncoming traffic, as just around the corner the traffic in front of us had come to a abrupt stop.  Seems that someone had been travelling around the corner too fast and the car had ended nose up on a bank.  Police and an ambulance were in attendance, so we hope that the injuries were not too severe. 

Then it was just another 30km or so till we arrived at Hastings, our stop for the next three nights.  We are return customers at a POP situated in an apple orchard, a lovely place to stay with power and good facilities.  Robin decided to try out our Cvana sun awning – it’s quite easy to open up.  We made the most of the glorious winter weather and sat outside for a while enjoying a cup of coffee.  This is a lovely peaceful place to stay at.

Easy to open sun awning

The caretaker’s pretty fluffy cat must have known we had a cat inside our van and  came over to have a look.  She has certainly grown, we remember on our last visit when she was just a tiny playful kitten.  She lay down outside our caravan door and waited patiently for Muffy to appear.  But  she was disappointed - our cat is quite an old girl now, and prefers to  keep herself to herself, safely tucked up inside.

Muffy won’t come and play