Hi,

What a wonderful weekend. It started with dinner at Mum and Dad's place so I didn't need to cook. That is always a good start to a weekend! Then we went home and I watched some TV with Toby while Mike packed for the tramp. I had collated stuff together and Mike packed it into packs. No idea what time he came to bed but we were up bright and early.

We walked down Norwich St with our packs on and I was joking to Toby he could tell his class he tramped down Norwich St. We waited at the bus stop for the number 14 bus to the train station. As we waited, a young woman walked to the stop laden with her pack. Mike asked her if she was going to Paua Hut and she said yes. Her name was Katerina, but we could call her Kat. Toby laughed and said "Cat?"

We got to the train station and met the rest of the crowd (bar two who would meet us at the carpark). Oddly enough every one of us was in IT. Eeeek. We met Steve Austin, our leader, Kat, Jordan and Alex. At the carpark at Catchpool we met Andrew and V.

Toby walked into the river very well. There were loads of interesting things along the way. Wobbly tree roots, mossy logs, fallen down trees, swing bridges, other trampers, dogs and all sorts of snacks to eat (Mike had packed well). Once at the river, Toby absolutely loved the many river crossings. Once he saw we all walked in the water with our boots on, he was off. And although the rest of us crossed the rivers at their narrowest and got back on the shingle, Toby took to walking down the middle of the river. He was quite taken with this aspect of our tramp.

We got to the hut easily (I think 2 hours total) and Toby and I pitched our tent and the others left their packs and took off to climb the hill behind the hut. Toby and I passed the time on a handy rope swing someone had put up.

Once we were all back together, we got dinner on. Yummy tuna and rice green curry. Toby ate well (once I scraped off the zucchini and peppers).

Mike, Toby and I slept well in our wee two-man tent. Snug and warm, and not too crowded. We woke at 7am and Toby ate 5 Weetbix for breakfast. He loved brushing his teeth down at the river and we tried to make a bridge over to the shingle bank by throwing huge stones into the river. This was so Toby could visit where someone had tried to build a huge teepee and had huge branches in the right shape still. He gave up on me as a bridge builder saying he was sorry he had set me such a difficult task and he needed his Dad to sort it out.

So Mike and Toby took off to explore (and get their feet wet) and I went back and carried all our packs down to the river as we all left to head back to the car.

Toby moaned a little about heading back to the car, but he quickly forgot about it. He walked well back (although an episode of running saw him trip on a tree root and graze his hand - he loved the admiration he got when I took out a Batman plaster to cover it all) to the carpark and we all decided to do it again soon. Well, Toby wanted to do it every weekend.

Sunday evening was spent watching the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica. It is drawing to an end so it is very exciting.

Back to work for the week.
Have a marvellous time this week.
Love,
Angela