An ill fated 3 week holiday that becomes 3 days!
We started the day with Xiaoli needing see a specialist at Kaitaia Hospital. What should have been a 10 minute appointment turned into over an hour with exploratory surgery now being scheduled. Bugger!
We stopped at the pharmacy to collect medications I needed for the 3 week trip. So far so good. About to switch the computer off and an incoming email received from people that had viewed our property several times with an offer. Damn! I reply saying we are heading off and we need think about it as it is less than we sought.
Decided to use our Pajero this trip so we could off road if we wished. Freshy serviced including new solenoids in the auto transmission. Hitch the caravan on and off we head. Get 35 minutes down the road and I ask Xiaoli where she stored the computer and internet modem for the trip. A blank stare. She thought I had done that. Bugger! Unhitch the caravan which I leave Xiaoli with and back track to home to get the computer and modem.
Get back to the caravan, hitch up and off we go .Just coming into Kaikohe and the truck wont change out of 3rd gear. Damn. Pull into the service station and refuel then I stand in front of the truck and ask it to behave. Start it up and all is back to normal. Off we head to meet a real estate agent .
Viewed the property which was okay except for the fact it is on a noisy main highway. Need think on that one.
Head to Matakohe Motor camp, a regular stopping point for us. I need medication and ask Xiaoli where she stored the medications I collected earlier. Whoops, they are back in our other car at home. Damn! I have enough for the night.
Turn the computer on and it wont start up. Up comes a warning message saying it needed a boot up disc or files would be lost. Damn! Well at least I had the tablet.
Up in the morning and head to view another property. The photos lied, definitely not suitable. Head back to Dargaville to find a pharmacy. They are able to give me a 3 day emergency supply and tell me to ring my doctor to get a script sent to a chemist on route. I do that and all is sweet except I find out later the script never arrived. Fortunately because of yet another truck issue with the transmission I would not need it.
Approaching Auckland the auto again does strange things with a warning light coming on. Park up and call the AA with whom I have the premium A+ breakdown insurance from touring days. They arrive. Check it out. The trans oil is clear. No sign of over heating. He ends up connecting to the computer and finds when it was serviced the mechanic had not reset the computer. So the computer was telling the transmission it had a fault. My turning the car off wiped the fault each time but sooner or later it would reappear and the trans would play up. The AA man reset the computer.
We decided after all the drama of 36 hours we would drop the caravan at a friends farm just north of Auckland and head home. A friend that knew of our dramas pleaded for us to park up but I said no. Later I found out why. We drove home. The Pajero transmission has never been smoother running like a dream. We get home 10pm absolutely exhausted. I have a beer and off to bed.
The morning we felt great and discover why our friend felt we should stay put. He had our 4 birds to look after left in their cage high up which I saw. Low and behold 24 hours earlier somehow a cat got the cage down and birds are gone
36 hours of one disaster after another. Now we are relaxed. The computer unfortunately had the hard drive destroyed so all files lost. But the computer now a much newer and faster hard drive. Sad about the files lost but my mistake for not doing regular back ups
In 3 days or so we will restart our holiday this time taking our normal tow vehicle.
In the meantime I need think whether we sell the property for the price offered or not. After all the dramas I am thinking not but just maybe we should. We do have the farm once title is through we can move to until we find something else. The property we saw on the main road I loved except for the road noise but they would need drop their price to accommodate the price we have been offered and the agent says that wont happen.
Weather is beautiful here. Beach flat calm. Need to go fishing and forget previous days dramas. Looking forward to restarting our holiday
I loosely follow Buddhism. Buddhism says what is, is what is
Peter and Xiaoli Tours 