Wednesday
19th March 2008
As it
was the Wednesday before Easter we had pre-booked our last camp site in
Auckland and were most surprised when the
lady could not find our booking.
Never mind she said you can go on C4, it’s a De Lux site and you can have
it at normal price. When we arrived
at C4 it was already occupied so I walked back to the office and she said don’t
worry they are leaving at 4.00pm.
4 o
clock came and went and nobody came to C4 but eventually at 6 o clock a couple
arrived but made no attempt to move.
I approached them and showed them that I had the key to the site they
were on and asked when were they going to move? They were German but quickly grasped the
situation and produced the key they had which was also for C4! We both marched purposefully off to the
Office with Mein Herr, in true Prussian style taking charge. The lady behind the counter had a
problem – she was fully booked and said Herr Hitler had not renewed his booking
and should have left. He insisted
he had and had the key to prove it; which was a telling point. As she was favouring me I kept my head
down and a stale mate ensued. Then
she changed tack and offered me a pitch at the edge of the site next to the
dustbins – I could imagine Margaret’s response, declined and moved onto the
offensive. There was a danger of a
new Anglo Prussian conflict developing and we both realised this so told the
lady she had to resolve the problem and retired together to await the
outcome. I learnt that this was
only his second night camping and he was ignorant of many aspects of
campervan. I showed him how to do
various things including emptying his toilet; by which time cordial relations
had developed. As the camp lady
came down the site she could see she was facing a combined front and divide and
conquer would not work, so we had C4 and he was parked outside a cabin where he
could get power and use the facilities.
.
Thursday 20th March
2008
We
set off to return the van and do battle with Apollo, our case well prepared and
our indignity rising over the difficulties we had had. We need not have worried, after an
initial skirmish they realised the justice of our case and gave us a full refund
of our deposit and did not charge us the Government fuel surcharge $3.50 per 100
kilometres – we had done just 5,000 round NZ. The hotel we had booked was near the
airport as we had an early start on Friday – this was a mistake – it would have
been much better in the centre of Aukland and we could have seen the city but we
were on the outskirts so didn’t see much.
Friday 21st March
2008
One
little travel story on the journey to Melbourne:- At Aukland Airport I had to go to
the Loo and as us chaps do, we were all stood there facing the wall when this
lady walk in, she stood for a moment taking in the scene, said “Oh!” and walked
out. There was a moment of silence
in the room until I said to my neighbour “she obviously didn’t like what she
saw.” The poor lady probably heard
the burst of laughter that followed.
The
flight to Melbourne was faultless and we had a short
wait for the turboprop Saab 340 to Burnie (approximately 30 seats). It was very bumpy but not as bumpy as
the Franz Joseph Glacier flight. We
arrived safely an d Mary, our host was waiting for us and thus began a very
relaxing Easter Weekend.
Roger
& Mags; Mum & Dad
