GYPSY GIGOLO JOURNAL #33

Good of you to pop in!
I have been undertaking my recent activities at a very casual pace and now is the time to liven things up as we move towards Xmas and summer.
When in Auckland I spend the odd night camped in my big back yard - known to a lot of you as the Auckland Domain.
During a recent stay when parked near the Wintergarden I was rudely awoken in the middle of the night by a raucous bunch of film technicians. They had arrived very early to set up for a shoot in the morning. I had no option but to vacate their film set.


My adventuring in and around Auckland has taken me to a number of regional parks. These are great places to park The Bus With No Name for a night or two. I happened to be at Tawharanui Regional Park, about 80 kilometres north of Auckland, when an earthquake hit Vanuatu. A tsunami was forecast for NZ and the over-zealous park rangers evicted me from the campground and insisted I headed for higher ground. Any resultant wave was so small it failed to trouble the myriad of sophisticated recording instruments scattered throughout our oceans.


Getting up close and personal with nature in the Wenderholm Regional Park resulted in this shot of a handsome young tui gathering nectar from flax flowers.


A highlight of recent times was a return trip to the far north for the Hokianga Country Music Festival. Revelry was centred on the Opononi Hotel and other venues included the pubs of Omapere, Rawene and Kohukohu. The event brought out some of the local cowboys who had a bit of a shootout at the pub.

They made their getaway on their trusty steeds.

Apart from smoking dope, linedancing is the most popular pastime in the far north. Everyone dons a cowboy hat and boots and rips into it with a vengeance, boot-slapping to the mangled strains of Dolly Parton.

I had my own cowboy hat and boots, plus my tokotoko stick, so I joined the linedancing troupe. I instantly created chaos with my unrehearsed moves which seemed to be 180 degrees opposed to those of the local country folk.

In the far north minor irritations get dealt with promptly and with rural flair. I extracted a wobbly front tooth with this pair of pliers!

The Willie Nelson look had developed through autumn and winter.


The arrival of spring and the promise of a bevy of summer beauties demanded a haircut.

Note how I have miraculously converted a host of six-packs into rippling blubber!

The next couple of months will be spent on Great Barrier Island. I will ship The Bus With No Name on the vehicular ferry and I hope to spend December and January on "Barrier Time".

Merry Christmas to you all and I'll talk to you again in 2010.

Good luck to all your families.

GYPSY GIGOLO JOURNAL #32

It's been a long time between drinks campers!!
Here we go with yet another chapter in the life and times of Hawkeye, aka 'Willie' in the Wanderlust Wagon, or the Geriatric Gypsy Gigolo.
Since the last time I talked to you I have been hibernating at an idyllic slice of heaven - Maitai Bay on the Karikari Peninsula, about 35 kilometres east of Kaitaia.

No pot of gold at the end of this rainbow!

Instead, these crosses serve as a stark reminder of a boating tragedy in the bay.

Big news of recent times is that I have sold my apartment in Parnell, Auckland and I am now officially 'Of No Fixed Abode'.

I have been looking out for likely properties that might suit me once I retire from the road.

Although my financial resources are somewhat limited, here are some attractive options that my budget will stretch to.

A couple more months in the north island and then off to the mainland for summer and autumn.

Thanks for watching.

Good luck to all your families.

GYPSY GIGOLO JOURNAL #31

Hi De Hi Campers.
Here we are again, off on another adventure.
This is the beginning of the third journey around the country.
It seemed appropriate to start again at the northern tip, so here I am at Cape Reinga explaining to my fellow adventurer, Rowan (Stanley) Forbes, which way is up.

The Houhora Hotel lays claim to being the northern most drinking establishment in the land.
It was compulsory for Stanley and I to stop and sample their wares.

Stanley was determined to explore the waterways of the Far North and courageously launched his rubber duck at the notoriously dangerous Houhora Heads.

The rubber duck proved to be a somewhat cumbersome piece of exploration paraphernalia, and filled up most of the passage way of the Bus With No Name.
Each stop necessitated extricating the bloody thing from the bus and then stuffing it back in again each time we set off.

A nostalgic return to The Hokianga yielded this historic little gem at Kohukohu. Stanley is standing on Kohukohu’s world famous stone bridge that was built in 1866 from Sydney sandstone brought as ballast in early timber ships.

Second phase of the Far North adventure was to participate in the 90 Mile Beach Lion Red Snapper Classic fishing competition.

Dan Watson fancied his chances of winning the big prize, so each day before dawn for 5 days we drove along the beach in Wat’s 4WD searching for a likely fishing spot.

Fish that won the prizes were all caught before sunrise each morning - we couldn’t even catch cold!

Exploring was much more fun than standing waist deep in surging breakers, so we drove up the beach and out to the highway via the Te Paki stream.
Wat is texting Coastguard our GPS co-ordinates in case we get marooned in the stream.

We successfully navigated the treacherous Te Paki stream, so good reason to celebrate at the Houhora pub.

After all this frantic activity it was time for a bit of R & R at the Far North’s best kept secret location – Maitai Bay on the Karikari Peninsula.

The plan is to winter over in the north, and then think about the south island again in spring.

Thanks for watching.

Good luck to all your families.

GYPSY GIGOLO JOURNAL #25

Welcome to the first update for 2009.
Xmas and New Year have come and gone and now it’s on with the journey.
We woke up on Xmas Day at the Nelson orchard where we had been working.
Santa hadn’t caught up with our temporary address so Dan and I exchanged gifts.
Breakfast of cherries from Geraldine started the day’s festivities.

A kiwi Xmas at the beach was on the agenda so off to Golden Bay.
From Takaka we headed to the coast through the hole in the rock at Pohara.

Just over the hill is a neat little beach called Ligar Bay.
Back in December 1642 Abel Tasman lost a few of his crew at this bay when some local Maori bros threw them in a big pot and cooked them.

Xmas Day tradition has me preparing a ham for the main meal of the day.
Basting a small ham with rum and sweet chilli sauce turned out to be a great success.
The more observant amongst you will have noticed the halo that appropriately adorns my head!



We shared our Xmas meal with a couple we worked with at the apple orchard.
Jason is an Aussie and Tracey hails from Canada.
Neither of them had previously experienced a Xmas Day at the beach.

Dan the pyromaniac rounded out our evening with yet another fire.


We drifted up the Golden Bay coast and stopped at Farewell Spit.
This is sunrise at Puponga.


In this shot one of the subjects is a lazy fat blubbery mammal - the other is a seal.


This place ranks highly as one of the best beaches in the country.
We are at Wharariki Beach just around the corner from Cape Farewell.

It is said that all good things must come to an end, and so too for our Father and Son adventure.
Five months, 7000 kilometres, a lot of our country, great company, great places, great fun, treasured memories.
What more can a man ask for?
Our last supper was at the Smokehouse Café on the inlet at Mapua in Tasman Bay.

Dan has remained in Nelson for the summer doing seasonal orchard work.
I am back in the north island to do some serious golfing and fishing in the far north.

Hope your new year is going to be a great one.

Good luck to all your families.