We headed up to Anakiwa to say goodbye to cousin Thomas & Adeline & Idris & Leila.  They’re heading back to Europe, which suddenly feels a long way away!  We decided to have a weekend together to give them a proper send-off.  Absolute mayhem a lot of the time.  Anna had to learn to deal with being the absolute favourite older cousin (and needing to escape to recharge her own batteries from time to time!).  Still, they all played nicely, walks were done, crabs were disturbed, treasure was found and goodbyes were said.  Looking forward to seeing them in Europe sometime!

Spring is at last springing, well, continue to spring anyway. Nice to have asparagus season.

We took Anna and her friend Anahera from school to see Snow White at the malthouse. It was great fun, definitely one of the better productions we’ve seen there. They definitely made an effort on the audience-participation front :)

While I was off doing the Queen Charlotte, Anna and Maaike took a trip to Australia to see their cousin Imke and family. A lot of fun was had, creatures great & small seen, birds listened to (Anna is now attempting her kookaburra…). Paddleboarding and lots of swimming too. Fun

Biking the Queen Charlotte really is my go-to for an “easy” bike trip to organise. I’ve been working half time for the last few months while a contract is coming in, and it looks like that’s about to happen so we’re going back up to fuller hours. This was a chance (while Maaike was off in OZ with Anna) to go on a trip. My climbing buddies Malc and Gabby were keen and hadn’t done it before, so, off we went.

It’s extremely easy to organise. We opted for camping (but, there is accommodation available close to where we camped each night).

Day 1 – Ship Cove to Camp Bay

We booked our water taxi with cougar line. They’ll ferry your bags for you and are very easy to work with on the phone. So they dropped us off at moreto / ship cove (marker for James Cook etc.), and our bags were taken on to Punga Cove resort (2 mins walk away from camp bay)

There were a few slips etc, but, nothing too awful. Harder work than I remember it.. possibly I’m less fit than I used to be? Surely not?!?!?

Nice to see the glow-worms at camp bay. There’s a wooden sign someone hung which was very helpful! The only major disaster of the weekend was that I’d brought a nice Camembert and blue cheese to share, and, I left them in the AirBnB. Dried crackers wasn’t quite as good.

Day 2 – Camp Bay to Portage

Hard work today, lots of up and downs (equal amount as you start and finish at sea level). Some stunning views along the way, getting to the viewpoints is worth the extra effort, especially “Eatwells Lookout”

Again we camped, but, that just meant we could splash out on dinner at The Portage. And a pint or two ;) I even had Crème Brûlée for desert. It was yum. You can still see all the slips etc in the area, it has really been munched in the bad weather we’ve had over the last few years..

Day 3 – Portage to Anakiwa

Unlike previous times, Cougarline now include your boat back to Picton in the ticket price (previously we’ve biked back, and I was very happy to skip that this time).

The easiest day by far, we were finished by about 1:30pm – maybe 2? It’s a lovely descent down towards Anakiwa, definitely an enjoyable part of the trip. Stunning views all round, just a very nice ride.

Very thankful to have the time and health and friends to do this with.

September brings with it lots of blossom, and Anna’s birthday – 7 this year. It’s amazing how fast it all goes.

Her birthday itself was at the (https://www.chchgymnastics.com/) where you can have the use of it for birthday parties. We opted to have some basic instruction too, and that seemed to keep the kids happy :)

We also bought her a desk on TradeMe… we’re hoping this will be a place for her to keep all her ever-expanding amount of “Stuff”. We shall see.