Ze holiday: Part deux

From Kaikoura we drove on to Nelson. Obligatory seal shots were involved:

Actually that wasn’t the seal that we saw when we left. It was one from the day that Dion went out photographing while the boys went diving. But still… you get the idea. I can’t tell damn seals apart so was sorta hoping you were all the same.

Post-seal stop and lots of driving, we made it to Nelson. The kidlet drove me absolutely round the bend with her 60 zillion questions. Han: “How long is it til we are there?” Me: “Ages… Ages and ages and ages.” Han: “How long do I have to count for that much?” Me: “ARGHHHHHHHHH.”

We set up camp with Jamara and her gorgy crew and the kids got into dressing up with poor little newbie Mila’s playsilks straight away. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I was asked “I wanna be a pirateship!” So terribly cute!

Pirate Han, Pirate Otis and Pirate Louie

To amuse ourselves (and fill our bellies) we also embarked upon a berry picking mission. We emerged with somewhat different coloured children. The little buggers did actually do a decent amount of picking. Then they disappeared and we found them here:

It was gorgy as always in Nelson and it was so cool to hang with the kidlets after so much time, and meet the little Mila. Supercutenessbabyfix. Thank you for putting up with us camping in your lounge, Jamara!

The next part of the journey involved several more hours of the questions as mentioned above while driving… and then a whole bunch of sleep (thank Dog)… until we finally arrived in Hanmer Springs! I’d called ahead to a camping ground to book a cabin but once we got there and I started whinging about wanting to sleep in a bouncy bed, the Boy floated the idea of the Heritage. And I was all “ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS?!?” and it turned out he was. So we stayed there instead. heh

We ate several delicious meals at the Monteith’s brewery bar. It had a TV playing kids films. And excellent service. I wanted to live there. Or at least leave the kid there for a few days.

Andddddddd then we went to the hot springs. In Summer. Yeahhhhhhh… spent most of our time in the kiddo pool. It was a fabulous kiddo pool for sure, but I’m pretty sure that when you pay that much for the entry, you are also meant to spend some time in the famed hot pools too. Ah well.

And then we headed back in the sweltering heat to Christchurch and collapsed in a heap and refused to get up for a few days. Oh, except to check out the Bealey Ave Speight’s Ale House. Just for research, of course. It was also amazing. No TV though – minus a point. Colouring pencils and princess colouring pages instead – plus half a point.

Finally, after a grand 11 days on tour, we flew back to Auckland to deal with the fleas again. Oh, and the horrible prospect of returning to work. Well, not for me… I still had a week to go of my holiday, haha, but I felt it FOR Dion. Really. I did.