Beach Hop 2015

BEACH HOP 2015

Tuesday 24th March

Goodness, how slack am I.  Has it really been so long since we did a post!  Well here we go with Beach Hop this year.

It is with a mixture of emotions that I go to Beach Hop this year. First, Colin is not able to attend the full event due to work commitments, so I was faced with attending on my own. Queue, son Carl who has come all the way from Karatha to be with me. 

Here he is (on the left), at his workshop receiving his Snap On tool chest prize from a competition he entered.  Wow how cool is that!

I am so excited to have him here for a Mother/Son Beach Hop event.  We may get to see Colin depending on his work, so we will treat that as an added bonus if it happens.

I was up early this morning to collect Carl from the airport and take him back home for a bit of a freshen up and to allow me to get my packing done. I have been super busy with work so sadly organisation was lacking this year. 

We left at midday or thereabouts and it was not long before Carl was snoozing. Even with the new addition to GRQWLA of some Flowies, (hmmmm love the new sound!), he was able to stack a few zzzzz's. Flying overnight with no sleep in 24 hrs has led to a few little naps for him, hence I am able to write this (now that we have arrived), as he is taking another nap.

We had a good trip down, despite the Coromandel threatening rain for the trip, we managed to side skirt it by going down through Paeroa (only catching a bit of rain at Kopu) and arriving here to lovely sun.  The road seems rougher this year with several gasp moments as we hit some pretty mean bumps. But safe and sound now.

A quiet one is all we have planned for tonight.  It all starts tomorrow. 

Wednesday 25th March - Waihi warm up party. 

We both enjoyed a great nights sleep and are ready for today. A dewy start to the day but after a simple breakfast it was off to park up. We spotted a few of our friends and had a bit of a catch up with them before engine start for a 10 am leaving time. 

It was a good cruise out to Waihi and we parked up in the Main Street. A great spot but the only snag is you are stuck in the Main Street and not allowed to leave until 3 pm. 

We took the opportunity to walk up the hill and look down into the open cast mine.  It is actually pretty big although Carl coming from the mining town of Karatha thought it "just a baby".

I managed to do a bit of shopping and found some shoes, the perfect colour match for the dress I was wearing, so they had to be bought and worn today. I had so many comments about the dress and I was approached by one of the organisers to enter the best dressed female, but as it was not for me, I left it to the other well dressed women. I was later to find out Sandra one of our friends took out the title. Congrats Sandra. 

So to the cars, quite a good turnout with I think, over 200 cars, so not bad at all.  Nothing sticks out to me so far as a standout car but I will keep looking.  Carl on the other hand is seeing lots he is enthusiastic about but seems to favour the rat rod look and ended up buying some artwork featuring his dream car - a Woody rat rod. With a bit of luck he may get to meet the artist and get it autographed.

I did find this cute little one.  I wonder why it appeals to me so much :-)

Carl took the wheel for the trip home and thoroughly enjoyed himself.

He's getting more and more keen and it's only early days yet!  He says if he were to buy a car it would encourage him to come over for the Hop again which would please this particular mother no end!

Gorgeous Whangamata Beach

We had our regular Wednesday night dinner with friends before heading back into town for a spot of cruising the main street.

Photo bombed by Bill Dobbin

The crew.

As it is still pretty quiet for the usual Hop standard it was an easy cruise around the circuit with no major hold ups. But that will change over the next days as more and more people and cars arrive. 

Thursday 26th March - Tairua Beach Party.   

Dodgy weather today with some rain and searing sun.  It didn't spoil the day at all though.  Carl kindly got the Pop all fueled up this morning and parked it up and came back for a spot of breakfast. We headed off to Williamson Park ready for leaving time and what a fantastic turn out of cars filling the Park to capacity.

We found our old car.  Still love it!

Tairua is usually Colin's favourite run so I was more than happy to relinquish the wheel and get Carl to drive.  More people out on the streets today, waving, cheering, requesting skids etc.  one particular road sign had us both laughing with a request for "Tits or Skids".  I wonder how many people obliged.

On coming into the township itself, we noticed a bit of a burning smell and a bit of smoke in the car. What the hell is happening?  Fortunately nothing too disastrous, a lost oil cap which blew a bit of oil out.

Thanks to Shaz for supplying the "100 mile an hour tape" to tape down the rag we had placed over the hole. With Repco (the major sponsor for the Beach Hop this year on site), a new cap was sourced at Whangamata Marine Supplies for us to collect when we got back. 

So getting back to the cars, we spent the day wandering around looking at cars, having lunch and a chillax on the beach until leaving time.

We found our old car again!

We stopped halfway home and true to its word the 100 mile tape was working a treat. Repco came through with the part at Whangamata Marine and we are all sorted. The rocker covers will need a bit of a clean to get rid of the adhesive residue but all good now.  

The usual queues into Whangamata were not too bad so we had a bit of a cruise up the Main Street before heading back to the Bach for a well earned drink and dinner before heading out again tonight.

The rain has finally joined us for Beach Hop. What a shame and the forecast is not crash hot for the next few days.

Thunder cruise tomorrow so off with the end caps and out for a bit of a very loud cruise!  I love that sound. 

Oh and by the way, the mysterious missing oil cap......turns out Colin checked the oil and added some more before I left on Tuesday and left the cap sitting on his work bench! Oh dear.

More updates tomorrow. 

Friday 27th March - Onemana Thundercruise

What a huge disappointment waking this morning to see rain.  Whilst it put a bit of a dampener on the day, it was still a lot of fun. I suspect I am going to be quite disappointed in how the Pop sounds with the end caps back on.  

It seems a bit more lumpy than usual running at a low idle by the sounds. Not sure if this is because we have the end caps off or as some people suspect the fuel here is a bit dirty. It certainly has more torque with the end caps off :-).

So anyway we braved the weather and duly queued up at 8 am this morning.

We walked back up to the park after some breakfast hoping for a break in the weather, but alas the rain continued. As such it did seem to impact on the crowds which were not as vast as last year. There were certainly plenty of cars so lots of queuing to get into Onemana.

Apparently the car can be dirty but the wheels have to be shined!

First stop was a refuel with coffee then a wander around the cars.  

This paint job is amazing!

Wild seas at Onemana

Trying to stay dry whilst eating lunch.  Good luck!

Preparations were underway for the wedding but we didn't get to see any of it, but understand they were able to complete the formalities before it rained again. This of course really did cut the day short so we made our way back and joined the queues on the way home.

We dropped in on the Vintage Market, lots to see there and was pretty busy. 

Evening cruising was very busy as more cars have now arrived to join in on the events. Extra streets were opened up for cruising to keep everyone flowing. 

So aside from the rain all in all it was a good day.  Colin has now come down to join us all ready for the grand parade tomorrow. 

Saturday 28th March - Grand Parade Day

So the bloody rain really spoiled it today. We parked up at the rugby fields at around 9 and already there were lots of cars there.  We stopped to support the local scouts and girl guides with a bacon and egg sandwich and drink.  We spent a bit of time watching the cars rolling in before heading off for a loo stop. Huge crowds here and only one female loo available. Someone really needs to tell Noddy we need porta-loos down there for this event. I reckon I queued about 30 mins for a quick pit stop!

Grand Parade

So the rain cleared mostly for the parade and then it just drizzled all day!  As we were parked up at Williamson Park we had a look around there before heading off to the Caravan park.

One thing I did find out today is a field, rain and jandals don't mix well at all. It wasn't long before the mud was squelching up through my jandals and making a mess of my feet, not to mention flicking mud up the back of my legs and all over my white petticoat under my dress.  I got to see only a few caravans and photographed one before I packed it in and left Colin and Carl to have a wander while I went back to our daily driver and tried to wash off my feet with some bottled water and tissues. Not very successfully I have to admit.  

From there it was the pre 49's, but by the time we got there some of the cars had moved on. Sadly no photographs apart from the below one as we were beginning to run short on time to get our competition entries in.

Colin, having to work tomorrow, left Carl and I in town to look at some of the Ultimate Pass cars but I reckon the weather had caused a few of the cars to pull out and get going.

A good way to stay dry in a T-Bucket

We made our way to Williamson Park in time to catch the Pop Idol contest where our very own Gazza performed a particularly good rendition of a Billy Idol song. Not the final winner but still very good.  The final winner was the local GP who only entered on a drunken dare from the night before singing Proud Mary. 

The surf board that was auctioned to raise funds for Ella, a local girl who is a surf champion, sold for $20,000 and will assist in her quest to compete in the World Championship.  

So to the competition draw.  The winning entry was drawn, validated by Noddy and the person phoned.  The phone was answered and the question asked, "are you at Williamson Park". As it was a no (how gutted would you be?) a re draw was done and the 22 year old young girl chose the car and the caravan was auctioned. Tomorrow it is the entrants draw with the prize being $10,000.  Maybe tomorrow the sun will shine and I might win.  Heard the saying, "pigs might fly? 

Last night of cruising, following dinner at Soul Bar eating gourmet burgers. Yum!  A couple of laps for us and then off back to the Bach!

Sunday 29 March - Nostalgia Fair and Top 10 Shoot out 

A busy start this morning packing up and cleaning up before heading off to the Fair. I was hopeful the weather would hold but alas it bucketed down. I managed to snap a few pics of the cars in the Top 10 Shootout, but as we both got drenched we decided to pack it in and get going.

Before doing anything though it was a real act trying to change clothes in the Pop.  I was so wet I had to peel off wet jeans, try and put dry ones on while maintaining some sense of dignity whilst seated in the drivers seat.  No mean feat I can tell you. 

We gassed up again before heading off. At 5.7 km's before the Kopu turnoff we hit the queue and crawled along all the way to Kopu. We stopped there for a spot of late lunch and then it was off again.  More queues before the turnoff to head up towards the Bombays and we finally got home. 

Whilst the rain did certainly make its nuisance self known, on the whole it was a great Beach Hop made the more special by having Carl there with me.  I am grateful he decided to travel all that way to be with me and I especially enjoyed sharing this with him and having a great Mother and Son adventure.  A precious time to be cherished.