Hello!
It’s been a while since our last blog as we parked the caravan up over winter 
Fortunately we were both able to contract back to the organisations we’d previously worked for over the winter months, which helped set us up for another summer of caravanning. It was wonderful catching up with and working alongside good friends again!
Of course we also enjoyed a few simple luxuries that come with living in a house…
loooooong hot showers
a readily accessible laundry
a dishwasher!
less worries about how much waste-water was going down the drain 
While we were travelling early 2023 we had to get an arborist in at short notice to fix trees damaged in the January storms. We decided during winter to get the arborists back to check the state of other trees, which resulted in us seeking council permission to remove several (some were subject to landscape protection rules).
[Click on any images for a larger picture]
The trees were taken down a month before we left town late November, so we had a large number of sizeable “rounds” to find a home for! We sold some online and had a firewood company collect the rest, but we also thought it would be cool to build a garden path of 60-odd of the “better” ones. Note to self: never build a path with 300mm thick (and 500mm wide) rounds that aren’t cut in any kind of consistent size or shape!
We did take shares in a couple of local hire shops as we tried our hands at a few new tools. Trust me – there’s no risk of a career change!
Brent’s bro Rowan provided great assist to our tree felling / stacking / chipping activities over several weekends – thanks mate!
Heavy rains part-way through the path building exercise (which left the “path” flooded for a few days) suggested we needed to improve the water flow from the back section. So… we hired a trench digger and dropped 40m of drainflo in the ground (and no, we won’t be offering our services as drain layers either!)
We also decided to make a couple of mods to the Ranger over winter, to better equip it for its towing and offroad activities:
Did an EFS 50MM suspension lift to improve ground clearance. Also added Air bag suspension to the rear, which means we can pump the back up to adjust for weight in the ute or on the tow-bar.
We’d completed 110kms on the original tyres (great innings!) so we upgraded them to BFGoodrich All-Terrain T/A KO2 on/off-road tyres. Also added heavy duty front brake pads and discs to improve stopping power.
Added a Snorkle so we’re less concerned about drowning the engine in water crossings!
We headed out of Auckland late November for a quickish wander to Welly via Napier, so we could catchup with some lovely folk in Dannevirke and Carterton. Awesome to see and hear the lifestyles they’re creating in these spots!
Despite weather delays the day before our crossing we had a lovely trip early Sunday morning. With ferry crossing still being a bit hit and miss we book trips on both companies a few days apart, with an option to cancel / refund. The ferry is the only “scheduled” part of our trip, and we like “optionality” in our schedule
Our first south-side stop was to one of our favourites: Whites Bay, a Department of Conservation (DOC) camp. We stayed for a week, making the most of the sheltered bay to paddleboard and doing a few short walks, including a three hour loop track that has some lovely views.
On our South Island wander last year we covered a lot of kms and often moved locations every 3 days. We’re trying things a little differently this year so will move the caravan less frequently to give us more time to explore the local scene, and then just trip further out with the ute.
We then headed down the road to another DOC camp at Marfells beach – this was very quiet and we had a fab spot next to the beach. We enjoyed doing the 13km return wander to the lighthouse again.
We then headed down to Kaikoura – we’ve only raced through here previously so decided to stay for a few days. This gave us an opportunity to chat with several folk at one of the local churches and to enjoy a leisurely three-hour wander on the peninsula walkway loop. This walk takes in the entire peninsula and includes the cliff-top track. Nothing like walking-pace to see the scenery!
We drove from Kaikoura to Hanmer – now that was an interesting little trip! We’ve included a couple of the short vids from Instagram at the end of this blog, so see the one with the Hanmer drive-in and the hail down-pour!
(Unfortunately these clips don’t have the Insta soundtracks as this would breach copywrite rules).
We’ve been keen to explore Molesworth station, and could have done this from either Blenheim or Hanmer. We decided to go from Hanmer, and drove the 80km metal road into Molesworth Cob Cottage and then the 80km back out again 
Molesworth Recreation Reserve is the the biggest farm in New Zealand – over 180k hectares! (about the size of Stewart Island). It reverted to the Crown in 1938 and today it’s administered by DOC with Landcorp Farming Limited responsible for farming operations. It’s a stunning landscape to explore and if your rig is under 7m long (ours is 14.5m!) it would be awesome to spend a few nights at one of the two camping spots at either end of the reserve.
Kaz debated whether or not she’d bring her sewing machine away on this trip. She’s been into a variety of her hobby crafts in the short time we’ve been away, and the machine has already proven useful as she whipped-up some christmas-themed bunting for the caravan! 
We left our tandem sea kayak at home for this trip as we didn’t seem to get enough use out of it last year. Instead we bought a couple of cheaper analog mountain bikes, which we keep in the ute canopy. We haven’t owned bikes for decades, so it took a bit to work out what we wanted and how we might use them. We didn’t want to “invest” too much in case we decide we don’t really like cycling at all! (See short YouTube video clip at end of the blog). We did our first cycle ride in Hanmer, and the pics below of a couple of wooden statues are part of a lovely forest walk in the same area.
Well done if you’ve managed to read this far! All that remains is for us to hope that things are going well in your world too, and to wish you a very Merry Christmas and we look forward to catching up again in the New Year!
[The video clips below are from our Insta posts if you’re keen on more watching material – best watched either in YouTube or full-screen]