For some reason I’ve not got the drive to write about the camping holiday over Xmas. Not sure why. It was great and fun and stuff. Perhaps it’s all a little too large to write about and I fear I’ll be here for hours. I also guess I’m reluctant to do a “we did this and we did that” post yet the getting into the small interesting observational details will be too much, for there were many. But I should get something down for tomorrow we’re off for four days in the land of boiling mud and hot springs and stuff.

Sandspit was where the camp site was. It’s a nice place, very family oriented but in a good way and very old-school, like they’d barely updated it in years. Our site was right by the sea with the water lapping about a metre from the tent at high tide but because we were in a sheltered bay where the water never got more than a few feet deep for a good mile the waves never rose even in high winds. We put up the tent. That was fun. I set up the tripod and Lucy and I snapped occasional shots, time-lapse style. Here’s the video.

cheezee music courtesy of Apple.

And here are photos taken on and around the site.

On one day we went to Kawau Island on the ferry. I took photos.

On Christmas eve the seven of us went for posh dinner at the Ascension Vinyard. It was lovely. I decided to pay. And then I saw the bill. But I still paid. They roast the food over wine-soaked oak chips. Yum!

Christmas day started with presents by the tent. I gave Isobel and Spike musical instruments with which to annoy their parents – a mouth organ, a drum-thing with two beads on strings, a weird spinning thing that makes an odd noise found at the Moseley Folk Festival and a penny whistle. Here’s me and Spike with the whistle (taken by mum).

By the end of the day everyone was really annoyed with the whistle. Result! I’m such a good Uncle!

Thanks to the traditional bucks fizz the rest of the day was pretty much spent asleep but we did manage a quick trip to the fantastically named Goat Island marine reserve. (As an aside, I’ve noticed the naming of places in New Zealand is either a cacophony of Maori or bluntly matter of fact English, such as Goat Island – the island where Goats were kept.) It being Christmas day there was no-one there and the wind had picked up big time making it wild and somewhat crazy. Low cloud over the hills added to the sense of otherworldliness.

More photos here.

And then on Boxing day we packed up the tent and made our way back to Auckland for food with Lucy and Jeff and then all the way back to Hamilton where I’ve been ever since, chilling out with such luxuries as chairs and kettles. Lots of other stuff happened and maybe when I go through the photos and tag them properly I’ll blog about bits of it. But for now, that was Xmas.

Oh yeah – the nicest thing about Xmas here is it doesn’t seem to matter. Sure, it happens. The shops go a bit crazy, the kids get presents and so on, but it’s all kinda incidental and a lot saner than in the UK. Maybe it’s the climate – when it’s all hot and stuff people don’t feel the need to make a big deal out of it – but this putting Christmas on the same sort of level as we put Easter is very refreshing.

Having a great time wish you were here missing you already t’ra a bit.