Barnacle Bill

Never had Sal Darago had so many barnacles. She was covered in them. This was from two months in Whangarei Town Basin. Kathy and I set to scraping and, in an hour, most of the little beasts were off. A power wash by Keith removed much of the rest of the muck, but those barnacles had left their mark. By the time we were in our new and elevated position to the left of the slipway, it was late on Thursday. Kathy spent all day Friday packing and on Saturday she went shopping in the morning. I did not start any jobs on SD as there's not much space for all the tools etcetera and people's luggage.
At 1900 we set off for Auckland Airport. I dropped Kathy off at ten and she travelled for 27 hours to be successfully picked up by Emily at Heathrow. I continued driving south. At 0130 I stopped in a layby and slept until 0500. I continued, arriving in Levin at about noon and booked into Levin motor camp where I hired a cabin. Unlike the one Kathy I and had had at Tokoroa, this had four bunks and nothing else. In the morning I went to Buckingham Motors and packed Stan. I drove the hire car to Levin and caught a bus back to Levin. I now had the 700 mile drive back to Whangarei, after which I would start scrubbing off the remains of barnacles for a week.
The trip back took 24 hours including an idyllic evening camped at Lake Tirau (Chicken stirfry and white wine), where I met one man and his dog and a small JCB on a trailer? The traffic around Auckland was as bad as the Thelwall Viaduct on a bad day. Stan the Van got me home and is now for sale. - Any Takers!