Hi,
A wonderful extra long Labour Day weekend. Mike, Toby and I left on the 9pm ferry on Thursday evening and had the ferry to ourselves (apart from some commercial drivers - there were hardly any normal passengers). We got ourselves a cabin and I read and went to sleep. Great fun! The best way to cross Cook Strait! Mike and Toby watched a movie before coming to sleep. I heard some incoherent story about talking dogs in Hollywood getting dognapped to Mexico. But - I could be wrong.
We drove straight to St Arnaud and Mike slept in the day shelter under the "No overnight camping in this shelter" sign. Apparently sleeping from 1.30am to 7am is not overnighting according to Mike. Toby and I slept in the car. Toby slept well and woke at about 8am. We had breakfast and mucked around chasing ducks (saw a nosey weka too) and sculpting logs of wood before we set off to Lakehead - DOC said it would take us about 3 hours.
We stayed on schedule for the first 30 minutes and then I have no idea where the time went. Toby had a ball poking into every boggy swamp we crossed, and running around on any beach we came to - so I guess that is why it took us the best part of 6 hours to walk there.
We pitched the tent not far from the hut under some trees in a perfect spot - apart from a lot of sandflies. Mike cooked up a storm in our billy - rice with tuna and coconut cream with fresh broccoli and carrots infused with sun-dried tomato oil. Gourmet or what??!! We ate everything.
Our exertions meant we were all asleep by 7.30pm. Then, around 8pm Mike woke saying "Who's that?". Scared me silly. We waited and listened and heard some voices approaching and I thought Mike must have heard that. But - no! It was a cheeky kea that had found our rubbish and was checking out our stuff under our tent fly. I ended up getting up and chasing him around the campsite in the rain with my headtorch on. I am sure I saw a kiwi scuttle away at the edge of the campsite. We could hear kiwi calling during the night. To stop the kea's antics, we had to pull both our packs into the tent and I ended up sleeping scrunched up sideways at the bottom of Mike and Toby. A little uncomfortable.
The next morning was beautiful. We packed a day pack and Toby polished off 6 Weetbix and we walked further up the valley to a swing bridge where we crossed and had lunch. Toby loved the tramping and kept up a constant commentary about anything and everything. When Mike pulled out the chocolate he could see that the kea had got in and nibbled two squares off our block. I groaned because the chocolate had been buried deep in my almost new backpack.
Back to the hut and we saw some families had taken it over and Toby was chuffed. He ran around in bare feet (he never does that) chasing after the other children and had a ball. So much so, that he chose to sleep in the hut with everyone else. I immediately checked out my pack expecting to see ribbons shredded down one side. But the cheeky kea had surgically removed the chocolate using precision pinhole surgery. I have a wee hole halfway down the side. It must have amazing smell to find chocolate under pack and two layers of plastic! Back to Macpac for some mending.
The kea turned up at the same time this evening too but this time our packs were in the hut. He poked his head under the tent flap and I said "Nothing here for you" and he took off. The families all took photos of him when he checked out the new arrivals at the hut and they called him Charlie the Hopper, the Cheeky Chocolate Eater.
Next morning dawned misty but warm after more night rain. But by the time we prised Toby away from the other children (well, they left to tramp out so it made it slightly easier for us) we left and headed back to St Arnaud. We had decided to camp in Nelson for that night so we kept up a good pace (a good Toby pace) and got distracted by hot beaches and clear blue lakes once or twice. Toby stripped down to swim at one beach but the cold water kept him dry! He
sunbathed instead. We got back to St Arnaud at 1pm and ate a pie at the general store after checking out the MX-5 rally cars meeting at the lake and then headed off to Nelson.
The road there was gorgeous and Mike enjoyed the drive. We created Digimon monsters most of the way. Heheheh. Toby likes to create new ones with great powers and cool names. Mike and I have to rack our brains for ideas whereas Toby's monsters seem to flow freely from the depths of his brain.
We found the Tahunanui campground eventually and picked our tent site. We found some food and playground equipment and had a good relaxing evening. Toby slept in his own wee tent and Mike and I slept in ours. Toby did very well.
Next morning we went into town for Maccas and to buy Toby some tramping boots like Josh had on (a boy from the hut - they were all from Nelson so they told us where to buy them). Then we headed off to Picton via Queen Charlotte Drive and caught the ferry back home.
The cat was pleased to see us and we got lots of smooches. Thank you to Vivienne for keeping her bowl full and closing our window we had left open. Ooops.
Back at work int he rain this morning. Toby has a great afternoon with Gramps planned. Gramps has tickets to the Formula One show in Te Papa and will collect Toby at 3pm from the meeting tree at school. Then we'll see everyone for dinner afterwards in town.
Have a great day! I hope your weekend was as good as ours.
Love,
Angela
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