First NZ trip in the Deli

[Dave]

Well I've just got back from my first proper trip in the Deli, so thought I'd share some pics of my travels. It was the Easter weekend so I got 4 days off in a row. Woo! I've started on the camping interior for my van and I have the basic bed and frame together and I'll put the details up in the Members Rides section at some point as it starts to come together.

I went to an area called Tarinaki in the South West of the North Island to travel SH43, The Forgotten World Highway. Basically a 150km long stretch of tarmac and gravel in the middle of nowhere and it's quite desolate, but in a good way. It had loads of towns along it at one time due to mines and railway construction, but they've since virtually disappeared with the closure of the mines and the lack of rail and there are abandoned houses and stuff all over the place. Quite cool.

The mountain biking was great, although ridiculously muddy!

I treated it as a trial run so I could figure out what I need for the van for when I go travelling for longer.

I tracked down the road to an old coal mine because it was classed as 'unsuitabel for vehicles' and I was really looking forward to trying out the van. Unfortunately they've since decided to reopen the mine so they'd levelled the road and put down a fresh gravel layer

Anyhow, on with the pics:

Whagamomona is the only town along the road and it consists of multiple old, disused buildings and a hotel/pub. The latter being about the only thing still open now. The town declared its independance from NZ back in the 80's (although obviously doesn't have independance!) and you can buy a Republic of Whaga passport when you pass through



This is Whangamomona's town store which closed it's doors in the 60's.



And the old bakers which closed donkeys years ago:



Deli outside the hotel:



Stopping for a bit of lunch at Whangamomona's railway station. Despite the shiney paint, the tracks were very rusty and I don't think the place had seen a train in a long time.



The view from my bed at Tahora Saddle



My bro left his camcorder here when he visited a month ago, so I decided to strap it to my roofrack to try it out. Unfortunately the drivers don't exist for me to use it with Vista so I can't get the stuff off at the mo



Just some random old railway engine boilers in a rest area:



This is where I set up camp:



Early morning mist:



Couple more random pics:







I now have a huuuggggeeeee list of things that I need to take along next time and things I need to add to the van, which I'm looking forward to getting started on.

[Todd64]

Thanks for the trip. I would love to visit NZ...looks very inviting. Oh...and the Deli looks good as well.

This pic looks as if the Deli is flying.

[FalcoColumbarius]

Delis can fly. Did you not know? Those are great pictures, Dave. New Zealand is a very pretty country. Do you get many bugs in NZ like mosquitoes or black flies?

Falco.

[TardisDeli]

Hi Dave,

Wowww, great area -- love the view of Tahora Saddle. And looks like you had the area to yourself for exploring, so beautiful.

Noticed your front license has the "Delica Dent", that useful "Forward Sounding Radar", when you hear it scraping as you enter the a big hole or ditch, you know it's time to think about whether you're gonna touch bottom or should reverse back now. So don't move the license plate, otherwise you don't hear a scraping noise until it's too late.

Looks like you put a lot of thought into your camping set up, sensible and efficient. I like your folding camp table (I have been considering one myself), very handy to put stuff on so its not on muddy ground, keeps everything organized (I was thinking of drilling little holes along the metal sides to put S hooks into to hold utensils & tea towel & stuff while camping). Your roof rack would make a handy place to tie a tarpaulin to, to make rain or sun shelter over the side door, tied to roof rack and the front mirror arms. Did you make a sleeping platform inside (can't quite see clearly in the photo) by removing the seats? So that you can store your food cooler etc underneath? Your Water jug with a tap sits nicely on the table, with a packet of handy cleaning tissues, easy to keep clean. Fire Extinguisher in the van, great. Romantic candles on the table, life is good.

Ideas for you: Comfy folding chair to sit by your fireplace (aromatherapy). This past weekend several of us brought cheap barbeque grill racks (a folding metal flat cage, about 8 x 10 inches, you open to insert steaks or toast or sandwiches or vegetables to grill over the fire coals, yummy food and no pots to clean. I cook mainly with a cast iron dutch oven (pot & lid) over fireplace, and a kettle of water simmering for tea & cooking; made a metal tripod about 4 feet tall with a chain hanging down from the top joint, to attach kettle or pot by S hook and hang in the fire. Cheap camping towel for you, instead of heavy cotton towel, is buy some new cleaning chamois (similar to a polyester fleece, often bright orange in colour) can sew 2 or 3 together to make a nice length, that you wring dry by hand, so dont keep dampness in delica. Foot mats: we lay a thin rubber mat on the ground outside the side door so we can take off shoes without tracking mud inside, and a carpet cut to fit inside the side step that can be removed and shaken or washed since it gets dirty storing muddy shoes in the step well, then the muddy outside rubber mat gets rolled up and put there for driving. We cheat on the cooking by having a microwave and 1000 watt inverter behind the drivers seat (use with engine running, but takes mere minutes to reheat food that I precooked and froze at home, so food lasts several days in the camping cooler), but your propane stove looks very efficient. Your cooking pot handle might unscrew, stores smaller.

For food I prefreeze stuff (ie milk, fill a recycled 2 litre pop bottle 3/4 with milk, freeze 2 or 3 days, then fill to top with fresh milk when leaving, keeps very cold for several days as you use up the milk). For food, when cooking home meals: make extra, freeze individual portions in flat ziploc sandwich bags, freezing very flat will store compactly, and thaw quicker when put into your cooking pot, and you can measure accurately the amount you need (nothing worse than being hungry when camping), and then food is alwasy ready to grab for last minute trips.

JFarsang (Jesse) did a post last year showing how they store their windsurfers in the van, lying sideways like toast in the toaster, beside the window behind the driver, on top of the bed.

Did you actually ride the bike, or was the mud from hanging on the back of the Delica?

It all Looks great, wish we were there.

Christine.

[Dave]

Cheers for the comments guys.

I wish the Deli could fly. Then I could have flown over all the traffic queues on the way home!

Yeah, NZ is quite a beautiful place and there are only real 3 cities (everything else is like a town), just over 4 million people and roughly 60 million sheep so there's loads of unpopulated areas to go explore.

The insects here are a nightmare. Especially since they seem to like British cuisine. i.e. me! We've got mozzies and sand flies over here (poss the same as the black fly) and they're everywhere. I once scored 46 mozzie bites in one evening and was sick for a few days after. At least they're slow moving though, so easily squished, unlike the sand flies. When I finished mountinabiking and was getting out of my muddy gear, I got 9 sand fly bites on my feet in the time it took me to take my shoes and socks off and throw them in the box in the back of the van!

Thanks for all the tips Christine. The idea of a 'door mat' came to mind while I was partaking in a fine balancing act in the doorway while trying to take my shoes off and prop them on the step without falling out onto the wet grass! I'm liking the frozen meals idea. should help keep the chillie bin nice and cool too.

Yep, the number plate appears to have saved the aircon unit from a premature demise, although some of the fins on it are a bit bent, but still works fine. The previous owner took the steps off and then a couple of days later went down a dried up river bed and nailed a big rock.

I'm just in the process of emptying my gear out of the van so I'll get some pics up of the interior in the next few days, although it is in a very early stage of construction right now. The van is the basic Exceed and has had the rear most bench seat moved into the middle (as below), so this folds down completey onto the floor and the bed folds out over it from the back of the van. I can then fold it all away again and the middle seats can be folded back up into position. Keeping the rear seat in does lose me some storage space, but I needed a setup where I could carry up to 5 people, so when we go away as a group we can all pile in the van and then when we get where we're going I can kick everyone out into their tents and fold out my comfy warm bed The cool box, storage boxes, etc all fit under the bed in the rear (hence why the bed is quite high).

One of the main things I'm after is a long basket for the roofrack. I went driving through the forest tracks looking for fire wood and I had to put it all in the van so there was muck and bits of bark all over the place when I'd done, so it'd be nice to just throw it on the top and have done.

Unfortunately the board is too long to fit in the van, so will ahve to stay on the roof for now. I need to get a ladder on the back of the van though because it's hard work reaching it to tie it on and I'm 6'3". hehe!

Yep, the bike was ridden, although the mud was so deep and clayish I ended up having to push it a lot of the time. The pic is from after I'd spent ages scraping a load of the mud off! I didn't manage to get the Deli very muddy unfortunately

[FalcoColumbarius]

One thing I do, which tends to gross some people out apparently, is rub cold grey fire ashes on any exposed skin. This appears to deter mosquitoes from biting me and to some extent, the black flies. I have sat around camp fires with people as they tell me that this practice is gross ~ and I agree with them that some people feel this way as I relax, sit back comfortably and watch them slapping themselves silly while they speak of it.

Falco.

[konadog]

Great post - great pics. Thanks Dave!