Moving The Major

During September we transported to Tane's Rest our newly refurbished caravan, a 15 foot Sprite Major we have named "Major Sprite", and we have spent our first night on the property.

In fact, because Tane's Rest has never had any buildings on it we may actually be the first people to ever spend a civilised night on the property.

Just as we moved "The Major" to Auckland on a trailer so we have moved it from Auckland on a trailer. However, we have changed our normal route as the thought of towing both the trailer and the caravan over the Kaimai Ranges to Tauranga, especially up the steep climb on the western side of the ranges, was too daunting.

​The alternative of traveling through the Karangahake Gorge with its twisting turns and rocky cliffs also wasn't appealing. Instead we traveled through Rotorua to get into the Bay of Plenty via the more gentle climb up onto the Mamaku Plateau before descending down past Kawerau to Awakeri Springs.

​However the topography of the eastern North Island still has the challenge of traversing the Waioeka Gorge from Opotiki to gain access to Poverty Bay. To avoid this would have meant a much longer trip south to Taupo then to Napier before heading north to Gisborne via Wairoa, a journey that also includes some challenging climbs, so the Waioeka George looked the lesser of two evils.

It is shorter but steeper, and true to form we encountered rain in the gorge. In fact it rained so heavily it was a challenge to see other vehicles on the road but stopping was not an option in case another driver couldn't see us.

In addition to the tow vehicle we took our trusty 4WD Toyota Rav4 with us as we knew it would be impossible to manoeuvre the caravan on the soft and wet winter ground conditions at Tanes Rest with our 2WD ute. After a carefully choreographed ballet to unload the caravan on a level section of our driveway and switch tow vehicles we were able to ease "Major Sprite" under the rain roof and into its new home without getting anything bogged down in the soft muddy ground.

Unfortunately our stay was just one night as we needed to return the trailer to Auckland, however our homeward journey was very satisfying having completed the task of delivering our home away from home some 540km from Auckland to Tolaga Bay, this trip without incident. And in the spirit of sustainability and to save some gas we loaded the Rav4 onto the trailer for the return trip to Auckland.

​We shall return to Tane's Rest very shortly and look forward to putting our new accommodation to the test, ready for our second summer in paradise.