Untitled Document

We drove north this weekend. We missed a lot of the traffic by going up on Saturday rather than the originally planned Friday. Cooped up in a little two door hatchback with three kids trying to share space in the back seat can be a bit of a trial. I need a vacation from our vacation. Have you ever felt that way? These pictures are in random order of our weekend. We stopped in Leigh first, and they’d hiked up the prices of the glass bottomed boat from the last time we were there. . .so we didn’t go on because we felt it wasn’t worth the new price.

We tried to hook up with David and Nancy in Monganui, but that didn’t happen. They were expecting us on Friday, and we showed up on Saturday. Had a super yummy dinner at that Fish shop anyway.

The next leg of the trip was long and tiring. We found our Youth Hostel in Kaitaia and had to close the doors and windows up tight. Then we proceeded to mass murder every single buzzing thing with wings. Some of them had already had a taste of us. Seems we’re all allergic to the mozzies in NZ. Patrick got us all up early by phoning my cell. It plays La Cucaracha really really really obnoxiously. Quite the alarm system really.

We drove two hours to Cape Reinga. Daniel really loved it and wanted to stay to contemplate nature. (About that – there is a Japanese Garden put together in conjunction with Auckland’s Sister City in Japan that is not accessible. You can sit on a viewing bench to “contemplate nature” but don’t tramp through the garden, it’s for looking at only. I feel it’s because it’d be treated badly, kids would stray from the path and jump on the fragile bonsais etc etc. I’ve watched plenty of naughty NZ kids doing things they ought not be doing, and from my first observations in Auckland, I now know why some places have BIG SIGNS telling parents what they can and cannot allow their children to go or do or whatever. On the radio after picking the kids up from the airport was a news report . . . “It seems the nicest parents have the most awful children . . .” I don’t know about nice, it seems more neglectful to me for these grown adults to turn their cheeks while their kids do what they shouldn’t. Somebody stop me.

After Cape Reinga, we made the long journey back home. We stopped at Ninety Mile Beach though. It’s not really ninety miles long . . . it just seems that way. Brennen and Daniel were trying to run away from an incoming wave and Bren fell and couldn’t get back up. We thought he was just playing, but then he yelped, “Help!” The wave rolled him towards the beach. He was pretty scared and shaken. Patrick saved him by telling him to stand up.

After that, we told Daniel and Rose they could only wade as high as their ankles. They said we didn’t trust them and were a tad pouty. Hello undertow! We’ve been telling them all along that the water’s not safe, I’ve shown them the signs at every single beach that talks about the dangers of the tides, but they think we don’t trust them??? I need that vacation . . .

We caught up with all of the homecoming traffic outside of Orewa. We cut through some back road through the bush and ended up on the #16 motorway which gets us home perfectly. We found some really great pizza in Helensville. We had to eat it outside because they’d just closed up their restaurant part. Fine – they charge fifty cents per person to eat in there anyway. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the most exciting eleventh birthday ever. Poor Daniel. Memorable though. No more road trips. We were going to leave first thing this morning to drive south and back over five days, but we took a consensus and changed our minds. We’ll take the kids to Rotorua, Waitomo and Hobbiton sometime this week and not all on one day.

Lots of love, happy easter, missing you millions,

April

prev | index | next