Old-Time Camping And Motorhoming In New Zealand...

Those were the days.
Motorhoming and camping in New Zealand
early last century.
It seems just like yesterday...

Freedom Camping In New Zealand. Morrison's Bush...

Just a bit north of Martinborough which is just a bit north of Wellington, New Zealand's capital, is Morrison's Bush.
It is says my friend Harvey, a simply beautiful twenty acre wood with much Kanuka growing, where peace and quiet are guaranteed.
You drive through the farm, give the friendly farmer a koha and then find a spot to Freedom Camp down by the river or how about over there.
Or what about there.
For a few days. Or even longer...

The Flying Tortoise Freedom Camping At The Historic Tokomaru Bay...

Way back when, beautiful Tokoramu Bay was originally know as Toka-a-Namu which referred to an abundance of sandflies in the area but those days are gone and the little pests that are left are old and sleepy. And the little town is far from it's heyday back in the early 1900's when this beautiful old New Zealand Shipping Company building was constructed.
Captain James Cook spent time here in 1769 and The Flying Tortoise was at Tokomaru Bay
just a few days ago.
Funny how we just missed each other...

The Flying Tortoise Freedom Camping At Tolaga Bay...

My lifestyle of choice would have been to be married, living in a mortgage free home in a retirement village, having drinkies with others at five a clock every day prior to eating some unidentifiable greens, mashed potatoes and some four day old fresh fish.
Then ice cream and and jelly prior to falling to sleep in front of the soaps.
But no that sort of idyllic lifestyle wasn't the hand that the cards dealt to me.
Oh no, I got none of a kind in my hand.
My losing hand has me going around in a little house on wheels ridiculously called The Flying Whatever and visiting dreadfully horrible places like Tolaga Bay on New Zealand's East Cape.
I do what they call 'freedom camp' which means
I don't go to those nice motor camps.
Well I would, but they prefer white tupperware containers on wheels to my funny old Bedford and when I light the fire, well, the looks on their faces! And they get their inhalers out and shake them at me.
So here I am cast out of society, just like a gypsy, an itinerant with no fixed abode, catching fish, enduring boring beaches and occasionally meeting a like minded soul.
As you can imagine, hating every moment of it.
But that's the way the ball bounces, the cards shuffle, the fish flops, the sun sets...

The Flying Tortoise Is Now Freedom Camping At Mahia Peninsula's Oraka On The Famous East Cape...

How time flies when you're having fun and all of a sudden I realised I'd been in the beautiful Hawkes Bay for nearly four months.
It was time to get some flying time and air miles completed before returning to Haumoana and Te Awanga in a few weeks.
And now I'm at a little place called Oraka on the Mahia Peninsula at one end of New Zealand's famous East Cape.
I was up really early yesterday morning to catch the many stages of this stunning sunrise.
The estuary is beckoning me to come kayaking, there's flounder waiting patiently for me to catch them and hopefully there'll be some kite fishing and surfcasting too.
It's a beautiful place, a few baches around for the few local inhabitants, the council keeps the area mown and the freedom campers look after the area too. We know that there will never be any high rises, multimillion dollar mansions or shopping malls within a squillion miles from here and that's better than good.
Wish you were here...

Freedom. Far From The Madding Crowd And Miles And Miles From The Nearest Set Of Traffic Lights...

Far from the madding or the maddening crowd and even further from the nearest set of traffic lights a hundred and eighty kilometres away,
The Flying Tortoise wakes to another beautiful sunrise at one of the most wonderful places on the planet.
There are shellfish to be collected when the tide is low and fish to be caught whenever.
Freedom. Who could wish for anything more.
I think simplicity is the key to happiness but what would I know...