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| Guard dog!? |
Nat and I were both working over Christmas so we decided to celebrate the weekend before and treat ourselves to a couple of days in Hawkes Bay. We started by visiting Sammie, a family friend (my cousin's wife's sister to be precise), and her kids at their farm. It was the closest we got to a family Christmas and it was great to see some family photos I'd taken a couple of years ago in the UK on her wall in NZ! After much relaxation, and having eaten our way through their farm (home-grown lamb for dinner and freshly collected eggs for breakfast!) we headed off to Napier.
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| Josh and Sammie on the quad - we were in the trailer. |
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| Zac working the farm dogs. |
As it was Christmas we treated ourselves to a luxury B&B. It was run by a guy called Mike, and his family, who couldn't do enough for us, from booking us on a wine tasting tour to wrapping up the leftover blueberry muffin we couldn't finish at breakfast so we could have it as a snack later!
Most of our previous weekend trips have been pretty full on so it was great just to chill out and do something cultural for a change...drink wine! Apparently it's acceptable to start drinking at 9am when it's in the name of culture, but after our faux Christmas dinner at a winery the night before we opted for the half-day 12am start, by which time a nice drop of hair of the dog was just about tolerable.
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| Posing for photos...think we might have had one too many. |
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| Giving Nat the camera...a few too many. |
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| Pretending to be a wind turbine...time to go home! |
We had just been given a whole hamper of local wines (mum asked Sammie to buy some as a Christmas present for us - thanks mum!) so it was brilliant to be able to visit the actual vineyards where our wine came from. We learnt loads...then drank too much and forgot.
The next day we headed to Cape Kidnappers to see the largest Australasian gannet colony! Well, I was excited anyway. But we had to abort because we would have got stranded (in my excitement I forgot to check the tide times). So we took a trip to the National Aquarium instead, and saw a kiwi! No, it wasn't swimming!
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| My mate Jake surfing on Christmas morning. |
All in all it was a cracking weekend, and we fell in love with Hawkes Bay a little bit. Don't worry mum, not enough to stay! But it's definitely worth a trip if anyone is heading out here.
Nat was working a long day (8am to 11pm) on Christmas day so I managed to squeeze in a cheeky surf in the morning before preparing a picnic, which we ate on the beach during her lunch break. It was an unorthodox Christmas in several ways, chicken instead of turkey (or ham, as is tradition over here), beach instead of family dining table, and sun instead of rain/hail/snow, but it was fun for a change. Christmas over here is all about beaches and BBQs but I still don't think it's acceptable to have Christmas lights in the shape of lobsters.
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| Cheers! |
We hope you all had a great Christmas too and are having a very happy New Year.
