Labour Weekend 3

After visiting Rachael and Antoine and hoping that we didn't hold up the process of laying the wood laminate flooring in the dining room of their new house too much (though Len did help with a couple) we headed back to our section in Whakatane where, after disrupting the car parking again, we had a late afternoon walk, along the way stumbling across a loud blues band playing in the bar / restaurant called The Office. We sat and had a beer alongside a tableful of  "old groupies" who must have been there all afternoon, one of them especially the worse for wear and hardly able to stand up. When she tried to dance I was very protective of myself and my drink being aware that I could be fallen upon at any moment!
The band was winding up for the day as we finished our beer so on the way home we bought some fish and chips for dinner from our local shop. Last time we had them they had been amazingly good with a very light herby batter but this time we were disappointed - that will cure us for a while from having them again!

Hurry through boats-there's fish to be caught!

The next morning we drove down to the Heads although they are within easy walking distance from our section. Len put his fishing line in and within an hour had 2 snapper and a kahawai so now he knows that he'll never need to go far from home to get a fish once we're living there! It was all very exciting and Len in his exuberance in reeling one in managed to hit me fair and square on the head with the hooked fish! How he did that I don't know - must have been funny to watch!

The Catch!

From there we headed back to Tauranga but stopped for the night at the motorhome park at Otamarakau right by the beach at the Tauranga end of the Matata straights. We've often seen vehicles parked here but didn't realise how orderly the area is with it's little drive and mown sites all marked. There are no facilities but a caretaker lives on site and charges only $5 a van a night. The only downside is that it is right beside the railway line and the noise is quite deafening when the freight trains go by - only a couple through the night though. Also we gather there is a bit of a security problem there with a group of Maoris always looking to target something to steal. Last week they stole a quad bike which had been sitting right beside the owner's motorhome. They must have pushed it out the gate and loaded it onto a trailer and nobody heard a thing!