ABC- Auckland Blo Kart Club, New Zealand

We're slowly working our way around the top of the north island of New Zealand heading to Auckland.  We're going much slower and doing shorter days than those on the south island.  We're even spending a day or two in one place!

One of the places on the west coast that we found was Waipapakauri about 1/3 of the way along the famous 90 Mile beach at the very tip of the north end. Just after pulling into the campsite late afternoon, we spotted some very interesting looking 'toys' being washed and cared for by other campers/guests.

We had stumbled into the Auckland BloKart Club's semi annual rendezvous - 4 days of racing along 90 mile beach along with lots of socializing and an awards dinner on Saturday night.  Tom and I were very interested in the carts and stopped to chat with our neighbor while he was cleaning gear.

Most of the group was about our age 35-70, a few couples some of whom both are racers, a few singles and lots of enthusiasm.  This group has been meeting in this location twice a year for the past 12 years.  When we learned that they have a 'mischief committee' we were hooked! We decided to stay an extra day and photograph the next days races.

We headed down to the beach the next morning and just stumbled upon their starting point.  With our rental RV, we are not allowed on 90 mile beach.  We had to find an access point to get there.  This involved getting permission from Ricky at the logging headquarters of Summit Forest to be allowed on their roads.  Turned out we picked the right one as our road ended at their gathering point!

They had many races over the course of the day, so both Tom and I got about 600 shots each!  Talk about an editing task!  

Somehow, Lefty got a ride... the little bugger!

After returning from the beach and   going through our images, the group graciously invited us to attend their “Western” themed costume awards dinner. 

A roasted lamb, and a whole bunch of sides had been prepared by the holiday park.  Tom and I were asked to participate in the evening as judges – me for costumes, Tom for the Tall Tales story-telling contest.  Lefty, once again, made many friends.. who all seemed to think he needed a drink!

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, with lots of laughter and possibly some new New Zealand contacts for our next trip.  We have been deemed worthy of a ride in a BloKart!  We will be back!

 And,   Lefty the Party Animal, will be back for another ride!