Have caravan–will travel

We’re on the road again, far from home, and having fun travelling and exploring.  Since our lovely experience of visiting the Chateau Tongariro, we travelled up to Hamilton, to get some caravan maintenance done.

We stayed at the most delightful place, straight out of “Happy Days” TV show, it seemed.   As we were allowed to park up for a couple of nights in the huge car park, it seemed only right and proper that we would order a couple of meals at their cafe, the Jukebox Diner.

Through these doors to the Jukebox Diner

The diner brought back memories of my early teen years, with staff are dressed to suit the period, paintings of singers from the 50s and 60s hung on the walls, and a life sized statue of Elvis in the corner.  The red seats with chrome legs (didn’t we have some like that when we were growing up?) and black and white checkerboard tiles really set the scene.  And just what did we order for lunch?  American hot dogs and ice cream sodas. Oh -  to be 15 again and rock’n’rolling the afternoon away at the local youth club!

Enjoying our lunch at the Jukebox Diner

Holiday or not, the laundry still needs to get done.  And just look at this laundromat we found at the little town of Kihikihi, washers and driers lining the walls – and that’s only some of them, there were more around the corner.  For someone who actually enjoys doing the laundry, I was in 7th heaven – happiness is clean laundry, I always say.

Checking out the laundromat

We’ve been over mountains, and driven through tiny little tunnels carved through the rock.

Travelled along the sea coast

And done a few rows of knitting – I’m up to the sleeves

So all in all, we are having a great time.  There’s old friends to catch up with shortly, a new museum we want to visit, and places to explore.  We’re having a great time!