There comes a time, even in the best of marriages, when the partners need a healthy break away. For some, that time is daily from around 6.45 every morning.

For others, it might be a weekend away with the lads once in a while.
While that may sound innocent enough, some of these errant spouses take the weekend getaway a step too far. Some have formed highly-organised cells of cult-like groups that roam the countryside creating mayhem and civil disruption.
As part of the new RR investigative series, this raving reporter recently went undercover to infiltrate one of these clandestine organisations.
It wasn't going to be easy. Unlike our recent expose on the secretive and intriguing Tauranga Spinners and Weavers, the latest target is a mobile one.
It's not just a matter of rocking up to Baycourt and catching them with their patchwork. Oh no, the Handbrake Club use a variety of transportation modes to keep fluid and mobile. You never know when they're going to pop up; via a motorhome, or boat and they have been known to actually travel underwater, although usually not by choice but by some miscalculation involving moderate quantities of rum and large quantities of gravity.
Our first task is to track and identify the Handbrake Club. We have a tip-off from a reliable source that some of the clan are planning a strike on the trout fishing tournament at Lake Rotoiti Holiday Park in the weekend.
Firstly, we have to understand their modus operandi – a Latin term, which in this case loosely translates as, 'peculiar drinking habits.”
We also uncover the meaning of the club name. It appears that because the participants have left their 'impediments” at home, the handbrake is therefore released and said members are free to roam at will.
It seems a strange irony: Here they are, leaving the old trout, to chase old trout.
After much research, we soon learn how to distinguish a Handbrake Club suspect mingling with ordinary citizens. The hats and t-shirts with 'Handbrake Club” embroidered was a bit of a clue.
The second indicator is the practice of roaming in groups – or as David Attenborough described it in his documentary 'The Wild Handbrake Marauders of the Central North Island” – hunting in packs.
Thirdly, their strange nocturnal habits alert us, and probably Rotorua Noise Control, to their whereabouts.
There's only a limited number of times that a campground can withstand the peculiar strains of 'Ten Guitars” and 'Crystal Chandelier” played on a 12 string acoustic and a six-string leftie, punctuated by the regular outpourings of Captain Morgan's finest dark.
That number of times is around six. The lucky ones, the deaf, simply turned off their hearing aids after rendition two. At this stage, any other person left in the camp still sane or conscious either wraps a pillow around their head and jumps in the lake; or goes in search of the chord crucifiers to shut them down; or the worst result, succumbing to the cult's brainwashing effect and joins them.
In the interests of scientific research, with no personal enjoyment on my part, I unselfishly and with reckless disregard to my own safety and future of my liver, volunteer to infiltrate the Handbrakers' circle.
Disguised as a spoons player, I was soon enveloped in the bizarre late-night ritual of this secretive cult.
After dealing to Bobby McGee and slapping a fair few windscreen wipers; then taking a ride on the Sloop John B with my grandfather and me, plus revisiting the aforementioned Ten Guitars and Crystal Chandeliers, it is clear that Hoki Mai is also deemed appropriate.
Now I don't know that Henare Waitoa's original version of Hoki Mai (Tomo Mai) to welcome home survivors of the 28th Maori Battalion in 1946, was intended for accompaniment by spoons, but after a few rums it sounded pretty damned fine. Besides it is the happier, more lyrical party version popularised by the Howard Morrison Quartet years later in Rotorua – and in this rendition the Handbrakers perform a fitting tribute to Sir Howard laid to rest that week a little further upstream.
By the time we get to Phoenix, for the benefit of Arizona citizen Leon King who was initiated as an honorary Handbraker for the night, it was time for the spoons to rest.
Having successfully infiltrated the Handbraker's inner circle, I slip quietly out the back and retreat to the furthest corner of the camp, with a pillow on each ear.
The next morning the scene of the ritual is eerily quiet. Bacon and eggs sizzle on the barbecue and the Handbrake clan are in reflective mood.
One is tucking into a digestively-restorative bowl of cereal.
I hope the spoon doesn't have too much rummy aftertaste to it.