Cutting it close

We’ve experienced an incredibly nerve-wracking start to our vacation. I must take full responsibility for the stress we endured yesterday. Months ago, I booked a motorhome for our ten-day stay in New Zealand – in part to provide us with comfortable accommodation while creating some last-minute flexibility with our itinerary.

Matt and Shelley warned us some time ago that twenty or more people might be staying in Brian and Janice’s holiday home at Cooks Beach. As a result, we’d either find ourselves relegated to a tent or sharing bunks with one or more families in an open-plan annexe attached to the beach house garage.

I used a third-party marketplace website to book our motorhome. However, at the time, I failed to notice that the company supplying our vehicle closed at 1:30pm on Saturdays and was closed on Sundays. Our flight was scheduled to land at 12:15pm on a Saturday. This made the vehicle pickup tight but doable. That is, until I subsequently realised the motorhome depot was based in Pokeno, a 30-minute drive from the airport. I’d missed this detail as the company offered a complimentary airport transfer. As a result, I assumed it was based close to the airport.

I contacted the depot to see how it would handle a flight delay. I got some very standard answers that made it clear they’d close on time. Follow-up correspondence left me with a sense that I was communicating with an outsourced call centre. In other words, I couldn't get any sense of what would actually happen on the ground. We were simply told that if we arrived after 1:30pm, we’d have to wait until Monday to collect our vehicle.

This morning our flight to Auckland departed on time and, thanks to favourable winds, landed 20 minutes ahead of schedule. A quick transit through immigration and customs resulted in Garry and me meeting our airport transfer around 12:30pm. This left us with an hour to reach the depot, complete formalities and be on the road before it closed at 1:30pm. Things looked good.

Queue the first dramatic plot twist. Traffic slowed to a crawl as we hit the southern motorway. Our 30-minute airport transfer quickly transformed into an hour-long start-stop crawl. However, luck was on our side. I’d messaged a staff member as we left the airport. They kindly waited until we finally arrived, 15 minutes after closing time. I couldn’t believe it. Her conduct was in stark contrast to the cold, formulaic corporate culture that had permeated my earlier interactions.

Queue the second plot twist. As we tried to start our motor home, we discovered its battery was flat. Our waylaid staff member called a technician and spent another 20 minutes servicing the vehicle before we finally hit the road. She also gave us a spare battery-driven jump-start kit in case the vehicle wouldn’t start after visiting the local Supermarket. We’d been warned earlier that we were best to stock up at the Supermarket in Pokeno as grocery options were very limited at Cooks Beach.

We reached Cooks Beach, our destination for the next seven days, shortly after 6:00pm. Let’s just say we slept well last night. A brisk walk at dawn along the beach this morning has reset the dial after yesterday’s drama. Let the vacation begin!

Oh yes, and before I forget, we’re expecting 23 people for New Year’s Eve. Booking a motorhome was definitely the right decision.