As hard as it was to leave Northland and the beautiful beaches. Sarah was concerned about what was happening in her garden. She wanted to check most of all on the sugar snap peas and the dwarf broad beans. (yeah right) that are now more than 2 metres tall. Both of which were cropping heavily and needed to be harvested. So we packed up and drove back to the big smoke.

We made the regular stop at Wellsford to empty the tanks and to our horror discovered a couple in a Jucy van trying to fill their water tank from the hose at the dump station. Thankfully we had done some research previously and knew that there was a water tap across the road at the A&P Showgrounds and where able to point them in that direction. I would not like to have been them if they had filled their tank with the dump water.

Back in Auckland and the serenity of the back garden.

It turns out that all the mountain goat activity Sarah and I have been undergoing has been useful for something, I have managed to aggravate the bursitis in my left knee and have now been in pain for the last 4 days. I must, however, say that it has been worth it. The walks that Sarah and I have done together getting out and about have been fantastic and my phone is absolutely full of photos, so much so that I have resolved to purchase a proper camera to try and do some of the places justice with the shots we are taking.

I had not missed a Breakers (basketball) home game in the last 10 years, so something like 140 games in a row. With taking delivery of the new van and heading away, I missed the previous two, so I was determined to rectify the situation last night with the Breakers taking on the Sydney Kings at the Spark Arena.

Usually, they have a warm-up game between a couple of primary or intermediate schools, and it can be quite fun watching. Sometimes it’s really one-sided and then like last night the score was reasonably close although I noted that after a couple of significant blowouts previous season they did not post the score on the board, I do hope this is not PC gone mad again.

Time for the real game, and in a surprising twist of the draw the Breakers where playing the Kings at home for the second week in a row with last weeks game a 2 point win to the Breakers. My three boys and I were looking forward to a close game, sadly this was not to be the case with the Breakers up by 24 points at the halftime break, and while I enjoy seeing a win, I appreciate it much more when it’s close and exciting.  The final score was 90 73 to the Breakers.

Anyway, it was great to get to the game and great to spend the evening with my three boys, and I will be back in Auckland for the next game, although later in the season I will be either missing more games or flying back from the South Island as we take the camper on an extended tour.

Today we are off to Karapiro for the annual Dethleffs gathering. This has been put together by Jonas and his team at Zion Motorhomes. Sarah and I are looking forward to meeting some of the other people who own similar campers and see what smart things they have done with theirs. So the next post will probably be from the banks of the Waikato River.
If you would like to see all the places we have visited click here

If you would like to see the ratings of the places we have stayed click here