On the Road Again

When my picture book, Dougal LeClair’s Incredible Cake came out on March 3rd, my husband, Gary and I were on the road. The North Island this time. We had no fixed address – we’d rented out our house to a nice family for 4 months. We left Tairua on a balmy summer’s day, just two days after Xmas, and headed for Northland. I looked forward to hot sunny weather and problem free travels. We had sold Helga, our Volkswagen van and purchased a 2015 Mercedes Benz 6 berth motorhome. It was after leaving a supermarket in Auckland that a warning came up on the dash urging us to visit a workshop as there was an ABS brake problem. “Rubbish!” said Gary. As our van had passed its COF (code of fitness) the previous week, it did seem odd. A computer glitch we decided. Undeterred, we carried on.
A few days later the van went into ‘limp mode’ and then stopped. With tow truck arranged, our poor van was dragged on to it and taken to a Mercedes workshop in Whangarei. It turned out to be faulty wheel speed sensors. Nothing to do with brakes but the computer thought so. Finally, we were off again – to the Bay of Islands. Nothing else could go wrong, could it? Little did we know - the first of two cyclones were on the way. . .

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