Rats & Mice Run

Yesterday, I did what I call the Rats & mice Run. Inevitably, over the week, we end up with a reasonable load of deliveries to slightly out of the way places. At the moment, I am the only one that is spare enough to be spared for this run. I looked at the manifest & got the Boss's permission for Herself to tag along for the ride. The run started with 3 pallets of Coke product for the Supermarket at Pauanui. Its always a pleasure to go there. Audry, who does the unloading, is a Maori lass who doesn't have a lot of experience or confidence driving the forkhoist. She likes me delivering because instead of getting impatient, jumping on the hoist & doing it myself, I let her take her time & pass on to her little tricks of the trade that help her. She likes to see me pull up in the truck.

From there, we went up to Hahei, for one delivery. Hahei is a small holiday resort, with a low local population that only really comes alive over the 6 odd weeks of Xmas. Its similar to Pauanui, except that the visitors to Pauanui are very ostentatious in the display of their wealth. Hahei over Xmas positively screams "money" at you, but you have to look to see it. They are a more discreet breed. Cooks beach, our next stop, is one of my favourite places on the Peninsula. There is only one block of shops, there is a service lane behind them, & everyone has a forklift. And they are happy as well. The other reason I like Cooks beach is that it has an excellent all weather boat ramp that we plan to use when things are a touch more settled to launch our boat from to visit The Mercury Islands.

From there , on to Whitianga, where quite by chance, I met up with one of our other drivers, who had saved for me in his freezer a beautiful feed of Pipi's, & you KNOW how much I enjoy them. I saved deliberately a pallet of food stuffs for an organic produce shop. Jules, who owns it, is a most outgoing & lovely person. She is from Hawaii. Why do American women figure so prominently in my life ? She is very supportive, having cared for someone who had Lou Gehrig's disease, another motor neuron thing, for 13 years, so has done the yards. When she knew that I had bought Herself along for the ride, she raced out, threw her arms around Jude in a huge, all embracing hug, all before I even had a chance to introduce them to each other. We came away feeling heartened.

Next stop was Matarangi, another Auckland suburb wannabe for one delivery. From there it was up over the Whangapoua Hill, just about our own version of Wolf Creek Pass. Herself learned some new words there once when the wipers on the truck ceased to work halfway up in a torrential downpour, but it was all bright & sunny this time. Coromandel saw the delivery of 5 rolls of plastic piping to the local hardware store. Then thanks to the judicious use of a pallet jack & the hydraulic tail lift on the truck, a 300 kg safe to the local school.

Last drop of the day was a sauna, that also need a pallet jack & the tail lift. This involved some 20 odd kilometers of sheer misery laughingly known locally as a "road," going to a place called Tuateawa. Let me explain. Its a metal road that not a lot of folk use. If you are lucky, its about 1 & a bit lanes wide, & passing an on coming vehicle especially in a 6 wheel truck, is something that takes a bit of planning, skillful driving & a big bucket of luck. Some of the corners are that tight that you can feel the rear dual sliding off in the washouts & its only momentum that keeps you going. But we got there & delivered the sauna. Then the fun started. Let me just say this. Double slopes, 6 wheel trucks & letter boxes aren't good friends. Did you know that you can dig out a letterbox, let a completely stranded truck out that has been blocking a road for half an hour & put it back in its hole so it doesn't look as though it has been moved ? take it from me, you can. If we had been in Sherman it would have been a beautiful drive, with stunning views. It took 3 cans of beer to wash the dust out internally when we got home finally at 8.30 pm.

All in all, we crossed the Peninsula 4 times & delivered a shitload of freight. herself was quite worn out by the time we got home. I wasn't. I was exhausted. My shoulders are still aching from the driving, but we had a good time. Its always good spending quality time with each other.