We set sail from the South to the North in pursuit of accumulating a wealth of experiences, travelling through unknown land for many hours and km’s and having the privilege of developing friendships with incredible people from all walks of life. We sure haven’ t been disappointed. Here is Part 1 of the catch up series.

Wellington to Manawatu

Back in February we sailed over the Cook Straight to attend our first North Island Home Educators Life Learners camp at Foxton Beach. ‘Home Educators Life…’ what, you ask? Well basically a bunch of refreshingly ‘outside the box’ thinking people, all with the commonality of educating their kids out of the school system utilising everyday life experiences, getting together for a weekends hang out, making connections, camping, activities and story swapping.

We extolled our greetings from the deep south and promptly pleaded for any unsuspecting souls there to take us under their wings and show us life in the north. Our call was headed – turns out they’re a great bunch these North Islanders. Through a series of events we teamed up with the Sebasta/Edwards family and post camp they become our new home away from home in Raumati South. It turned out our bus quite liked their driveway, and the kids happened to quite like theirs.   Thus we ended up parking up with them for months, inter-mixed with several weeks of parking up around Wellington and a trip back to Timaru for 5 weeks over which time they very kindly babysat our bus for us. Had they had their HT license I may have suspected the bus to explore the north by itself with new occupants in our absence such was their desire to try this lifestyle. But alas, no, it sat quietly and awaited our return ready to fire up and head onto new adventures. And the potential new occupants – well they are the cream of the crop up here as far as we are concerned, easy going, gracious, fun and thoughtful – we are hugely indebted to their kindness and loved hanging out with ‘em.

Natural Learners Camp

We returned from Timmars, having put the house on the market, straight into clocking up our second COF for the bus and then headed for our second Home Educators camp. This time at Rangi Woods, Pohangina Forest, near Ashhurst, (Palmerston North). It felt good to fire up and stretch the legs on the ole girl once again, even though it took a little getting used to being back in the driver’s seat. We greeted many familiar faces from the first camp, sat around the fire chewing the fat and then, it happened. The Norovirus struck…. the entire camp. Woweee what an experience. In summary, one massive spew fest. In our whaanau 5 were struck down and one stood strong, defiant, guess who! I got the job of nursing the rest of ‘em. Gah! There was something incredibly bonding about sharing such an experience with so many other families. I think it was the fact that usually when things such as this strike, you go into isolation and lock down, sometimes for weeks, until it passes. This time it seemed no family was exempt. A resignation settled in and a hardy few stayed on and shared an evening’s communing despite the sounds of heaving stomachs surrounding!

Having chalked that one up to experience we self-invited, I mean, were invited to park up at our new friends the Fyles’ home in Ashhurst. (Actually I believe our shared friend nominated them to host us…. we’ll go with that). Also experiencing the symptoms of norovirus we were able to commiserate together, and we were mighty grateful for a park up so close to the camp. Even the short distance to travel had those who were ill turn an interesting shade of green! A week of recovery then we started to explore the beautiful lush Manawatu and its mighty wind turbines. Hamish and Mr 5yrs set off for 5 days back to Timaru to tie up some loose ends with work and house while the rest of us happily stayed and played in Ashhurst/Palmy….well mostly happily….having installed new house batteries Hamish then happily flew away leaving me, the most electrically illiterate person on this earth to manage the system…..gahhhh needless to say it didn’t work, we froooooozzee, and there was some short sharp phone calls to hubby to lament. An electrician and a few phone calls later to suppliers and we had ourselves a functioning system once again, whewf!

The Heidelberg Press

Whilst parked up with these guys we had the privilege of experiencing a very exciting new venture that Daniel had undertaken. A 1950’s Printing Heidelberg printing press. We witnessed the delivery and installation of it, and the inaugural print run. What a cool and unique opportunity. We even had a chance to play with making our very own usinthebus cards. I have discovered not only am I electrically illiterate, I am also very printing press setting illiterate….Daniel was so long suffering! Unfortunately after 3 weeks, in the 11th hour, the Press spat the dummy, threw in a challenge that was going to take more time to solve and didn’t let us finish our project. Gutted.  However, we have since heard Daniel has been tinkering ferociously since our departure and achieved great things.  Now we just need an address to have the goods shipped...mmm....one of those trickier issues with life on the road!  We’ll definitely be back to Ashhurst though, for more time to be spent with these beautiful people and tinkering time.  Meanwhile if you require any classy work designed then printed on this amazing piece of engineering by an absolute top class of a guy make sure you get in touch with Daniel www.fyles.com - you'll be glad you did.

Our self-imposed time to move on had arisen and we fired up our ole girl for new horizons, our hearts set on reaching the sea once again. Thus, we strapped the kiddies in and drove on through the stunning Manawatu Gorge and off up State Highway 2 to The Hawkes Bay.

Posted by Angela