From Te Mahia we headed to Anakiwa to stay at a friends bach (holiday home) for a couple of weeks. I’m lucky enough to be able to work remotely, and, while the internet wasn’t great there, it was just good enough. I worked 1/2 days (mornings) and then in the afternoon took over from Maaike who worked some of the afternoons. Worked out pretty well.

Had a lovely time, swims, bikes on the queen charlotte (just the free part back towards Te Mahia – route below), once you go past the marker you have to purchase a track pass to use the private land.

We were there for Christmas, and it was pretty fun, there were carols in the dining hall at Outward Bound

And Santa came on a boat on Christmas day and lobbed lollies out from the boat and onto the jetty. No drownings from kids chasing after the sweets (some of which fell in the water)

We walked to Davies bay for Christmas itself. We were lucky enough with the weather as it lashed rain the following evening. I admit I’d been feeling lazy, but, Maaike gave us a push and it was actually a really lovely spot to spend the evening. Million dollar view for $25 for the night for the three of us… just brilliant.

We did a day trip to Moturara Island with Eko Tours. We cruised about on the sound for about an hour or so, having a look at various species (king? cormorants, blue penguin and sheerwaters) on our way to Moturara Island.

On the Island we had a nice footle about and up to the viewpoint for a look about

I did find the cairn at the top very very colonialist in nature… uncomfortable reading.

On the way back, the kids on the boat were allowed to steer! (very exciting for them)..

And we were lucky enough to have the very rare Hectors Dolphins come over for a play

After school finished we hopped in the car and headed up to Te Mahia which is on the Queen Charlotte peninsula for my cousin Thomas’ wedding to Adeline. It’s a beautiful spot, only recently enough reopened after some serious slips and landslides from rains a few years ago.

It was a lovely wedding and a super spot to just enjoy hanging out in. The weather was very kind, so lots of swimming and even went for a paddle. Well, that was one thing, we (Thomas Adeline and I) went out for a paddle for an hour on sit-on-top kayaks. I was finding it really tough going, which really annoyed me as I’ve done a bit of paddling over the years here, and yeah, thought I should be doing better. Then about 40 minutes into the paddle, while we were heading back I just couldn’t stop myself from capsizing! Super embarrassing. Managed to re-right it & get back in (harder than you’d think it would be) only to promptly capsize again. Eventually had to just swim & push the kayak back to shore. Once on land I was pulling the (heavy) boat up, and just emptying the surface water out, and then realised that the boat was full of water. The bung at the back (why it even had one I dunno, being just a sit-on-top) had never been in there, so, the boat had just filled with water. We laughed about it, but, obviously we told the staff and they really do have a duty-of-care there. If that had been a single (inexperienced) person out there it could have been a different story.

Anyway, a lovely wedding – congratulations to Thomas & Adeline – they make a very lovely couple.

An family friend and former scout leader Emma came through NZ for the hockey (masters) world champ, lovely to catch up for an evening. My friend Tim very kindly used his l33t soldering skillz to fixup Anna’s clock which changes colour for night/mornings (a crucial piece of parenting kit for us). Ice-pops have been made as the weather is heating up.

We had Sinterklaas come visit NZ which was very special for Anna. They really take it seriously, with 20 minute news segments for about 3 weeks prior to when he arrives. We went off to the Dutch society here for the funfair day. Dutch games, food etc. Nice time (hot!)

And then all so soon it was the end of the school year and time for the summer holidays (until early Feb!!). Anna won a “core skills” award… I think for being a general all-rounder.. fits the bill I think.. She fortunately appears to have inherited (or absorbed) Maaike’s way of dealing with people & situations, a skill which will be extremely useful I suspect!

With the days getting longer it was time for a trip to Orton Bradley. Not too far from ChCh and while the nicer separated camping area isn’t open until January, it’s still a nice place to get away to. Maaike biked out on the Saturday and I biked back from ChCh on the Monday (it was a public holiday). Actually, that’s one of the nice things about being an employee again – it forces me to take public holidays (I’d generally just skipped them in my previous contracting role).

I took Anna along to a beach cleanup with Sustainable Coastlines and we spent an hour or so collecting trash along the coast and then free ice-creams. Bargain.

On a more political note, we have a right-leaning government in power, and they’re trying to skip around the treaty of waitangi and basically trying to go “we’re all equal now”.. completely ignoring the century+ of inequity in NZ. There has been widespread peaceful protests which I was very happy to attend. I really hope with all the inflation and widespread economic downturn that NZ doesn’t move too far to the right and ACT get voted into oblivion at the next election. One can but hope (and vote)

And the absolutely wonderful protest in parliament.