Life In New Zealand...

This is how it is and how it was, but life on the road for this friend and fellow traveller in the future is not looking all that rosy.
Our wonderful life style is being threatened by ignorant and arrogant people who think that it's ok to leave litter anywhere they please and literally shit in their own playground. There is no excuse for this sort of behaviour and legislation will NOT prevent it!
Unfortunately in New Zealand, we have more than our share of ignorant and arrogant bureaucrats with tunnel vision and who are sadly lacking in imagination. Their only answer is to blanket ban everything that moves and tax anything that doesn't. Or is it the other way round. They too, threaten our existence, as they always have. People are very nervous of those wishing to live outside the square. Because they don't understand it, they themselves find it threatening, their insecurities blossom and take fanciful flights.
For overseas friends of this Blog who think that New Zealand is the last bastion in the world for folk with Gypsy inclinations and ideas of a free life on the road, you may well be right, but for how much longer I wonder.
There is much media attention focusing on the issue of 'Freedom Camping' at this time. Watch this litter free space...

Detailing Delight...

A delightful piece of detailing on one of the many personable housetrucks belonging to members of New Zealand's Gypsy Fair.
This is Bev's pride and joy...

Postcard...

Tauranga's Stan Nash is just back home from one of his 'tour's of duty', a nine day, twelve hundred kilometre sojourn south. Combining his fitness and pedal power with the 48cc two stroke engine attached to his regular bicycle, 75 year old Stan, depending on his mood and the moon, stays either at Backpackers or under the stars. The fuel tank holds a couple of litres, enough to take him about 150 k's cruising at around thirty kph. It's freedom Stan...

New Zealand's Jypsy Jude...

For my beautiful friend Jypsy Jude, life is a Bed Of Roses. Many years she's travelled the frontroads and backroads delighting all those who meet her with her generosity of spirit, wonderful personality and artistic talents.
She, with a few others started the Original Gypsy Fair some fifteen years ago and she still is sometimes seen there doing readings and enhancing people's lives.
Jypsy Jude has had a huge effect on the housetrucking community in this country and has probably done more than any other to keep the Gypsy style alive on the road. She has painted her 'Folk Art' on literally hundreds of housetrucks and housebuses throughout the land. Some are now off the road but many still have many years of life and times ahead of them and if you see them they'll make your heart sing.
I'm going to try and catalogue all her works of art and from time to time you'll see examples of her quirky humour and skills here to enjoy. These days you'll find Jude in her newest old Beddy, Bed Of Roses...

One Man's Small Footprint...

One giant little home. Built a few years ago in New Zealand's hilly capital where imaginative town planners prevail, Wellington is home to some wonderful inexpensive and innovative design ideas for living in. Here, two shipping containers sit atop a third creating a unique and distinctive living space close to a beautifully rugged coastline.
And the seal colony at Red Rocks...

Buy Of The Week!

You can buy this today with no deposit and really good monthly terms. It even comes with a free tank of petrol. In case you want to set fire to it...

Postcard From Katikati...

It looks like they're leaving New Zealand's 'Mural Town' too. Murals abound in this little town just a half hours drive north from Tauranga, one of the sunniest places in the country... And they're very Motorhome friendly...