Gracies holiday time up north.

The next big event on the calendar for us was the wedding of Sam and Cam at Pauanui.  Sam is Vicki's daughter who lives in Adelaide.  We travelled to Pauanui and booked into the very nice Puka Park Hotel. The rooms are set into the bush and have a nice sense of privacy and are very well appointed. It feels like a little bit of luxury.  The family and friends arrived in dribs and drabs and we all headed down the beach where the ceremony was to take place.  The sun was shining with a small breeze that helped to keep things from getting too hot and there was a real feel of relaxation with a very laid back ceremony.  Cam and Sam's young son Ollie was almost the star of the show with a reading from one of his favourite books.  After the ceremony it was back to the hotel for drinks, lovely canapés and then onto the reception. What a lovely relaxed wedding it turned out to be and everyone enjoyed themselves immensely.  The only small hiccup was when Jocelyn decided to head back to her room and got geographically confused.  After about half an hour of trekking through the bush tracks she stumbled upon some helpful staff who took her over to the other side of the complex and back to our room.

A special day for Cam and Sam and young Ollie.

  Gracie was due to be picked up so we were off to Heidi's again and I travelled over to Rotorua to pick her up.  She had been having a great time with her other grandparents Brian and Sue. Was great to get Grace and Luca together as living in different islands opportunities are limited.

James, Grace and Luca all playing with dollies.

We decided to spend a few days at Lake Rerewhakaitu as Gracie loves to swim.  There were quite a few people in the camp but we found a nice spot right close to the water.  I think over the next 4 days Grace hardly managed to get dry.  I was sure she was going to grow fins. She loved swimming out to the pontoon off shore and jumping off.  She finds it very easy to make friends with her happy nature and with swimming and kayaking it was a great place to be.   We would also put the snorkelling gear on and we would swim around the edge of the reeds and surprise all the small schools of fish.  We even found where a koura had outgrown its shell and left the old husk on the lake bottom.
  John and Margot came out for a day with Michelle and Nathan and brought some of their fresh home made bread,  What a treat that was.  Big crusty loaves straight from the bread maker.Yum.  John brought the boat and we went for a fish.  We caught 2 or 3 nice fish but let them go as we had plenty to eat.  The wind seemed to get up most days but it seemed to be the case right around the country this summer season.

Set up at Lake Rerewhakaitu.

 Next we were back to Heidi's for one night then we went to Omokoroa for two nights.  We caught up with our old neighbours again as Grace had got to know Beans and Glynn Bakewells two girls Sarah and Holly.    They had holidayed over christmas in Kaikoura and had spent a bit of time with Rod and Catherine.  Rod took them hunting and Sarah managed to shoot her first deer and Holly shot her first goat.
  While in town we took Grace to spend her Christmas vouchers then we were back to the rig and packed up and off to lake Aniwhenua.  This lake is in Galatea and is a hydro lake.  Many years ago I used to fish this lake and regularly caught trout up to 10lbs. There is a free camping area at the end of the lake by the dam.  It is managed, developed and funded by the locals.  It is a very beautiful wee spot and I recommend it to anyone to enjoy for a few days.  There is a boat ramp and toilets on site and you can catch a trout right from the beach there.
  The lake itself is quite narrow with all species of waterfowl and there is a lot of weed in sections of the lake that can make navigation a bit of a challenge.  We camped in a flat spot close to the water and later in the day the Bakewell clan arrived to spend a couple of days with us.  The kayaks came out and the swimming togs and in no time everyone was having heaps of fun.  In the evening the cards came out and we all demolished Beans at gin rummy.
  There was a bit of drama on the last night as the wind and rain had arrived.  Grace and Holly were in the small tent under the goose neck of the rig.  The rain was dripping off the gutter driving Holly crazy so Beans hopped in Holly's bed and Holly jumped back into their camper.  Then the wind got up and flattened the tent over onto Gracies face which woke her up.  In the meantime Beans was going crazy with the noise from the gutter dropping the water in ever increasing and diminishing crescendos on to the fly of the tent.  Gracie was getting frightened and wanted to come into the rig onto her bed, so Beans got her up and grabbed a handful of bedding and took it inside leaving Gracie with a small torch. She then managed to get her long hair stuck in the zip of the tent. Beans came back and gave the zip a bit of a rip which produced a howl from Grace.  Beans being almost totally blind with any detail in close new the task was too much in the wind and rain so rummaged around in our drawers and found a pair of scissors.  A few snips and she was free.   Apparently there was a fair racket going on with the door slamming in the wind and a lot of backward and forward with bedding scissors and people setting up beds. Finally it was all organised and Gracie was back in her own bed settling down to sleep.  Jocelyn and I were blissfully unaware of all this drama and managed to sleep through the lot.  It was rather unsettling to hear all of this in the morning.

Lake Aniwhenua

  Never mind we all survived the night.  Next day was still raining and we were off to Ngongotaha NZMCA camp.  Jocelyns sister Jenny and Stan had arrived from Aussie for a couple of days to visit with a sick friend and we caught up with them at John and Margots.  Gracie was straight into their pool while we had a nice dinner and a catch up.  We caught up with Jenny and Stan  again the next morning at Ngonataha for a coffee before they were to fly out later in the day.  We then packed up to head for Miranda to stay a night as Gracie was to fly out of Auckland the next day and back home to Kaikoura.  As she still wasn't sick of swimming we took her to the Miranda hot pools for another swim then back to the beach.  We had had such a lovely time with Grace and it makes you feel how important it is to stay in contact with all the members of your family no matter where they are around the country.  After our sad farewells we were back to Omokoroa as we had a house inspection with our tenant the next day.  We stayed at Bill and Liz's across the road.  The house inspection went great with not only the house looking immaculate but the grounds as well.  Very reassuring.  The next night we had a great BBQ with our neighbours and most of us drunk a bit much but it was good to stay in touch with them all.
  While in Tauranga we had a moment of madness and called into the bike barn just for a look.  We came out with a brand new bike each.  Jocelyns old bike was on it's last legs and I had never owned a bike before so this was a first for me.

The new bikes

Mick being greedy with 3 at a time.

  I was soon to be taking grandson James into the Ureweras so we moved to Rotorua again and stayed at Mick and Chris's place at Hamurana.  We parked the rig on the front paddock and the next day Mick and I  and mate Rob were off fishing while Jocelyn went to the Rotorua A+P show. We had a lovely day out on the boat catching 10 good bluenose and 15 terakihi.  Jocelyn enjoyed her day at the show as well.

A good bluenose

 We had 2  very enjoyable nights with Mick and Chris then we moved to Ngongotaha again and got packed for the Urewera trip.  It was an early start to Ruatahuna with James's gran Sue coming with us to drive the ute back and then come and pick us up again.  I had been having a fair bit of trouble with arthritis in my feet and right ankle lately so I was a bit anxious how I would go carrying a pack.  Lucky I had young James with me as he eased my load by carrying more in his pack.  It seems things have come full circle as it doesn't seem that long ago he wasn't able to carry a full load.  Mate Beans was with us as well and we were all keen to get in there and get camp set up.  I struggled with pain on my first day but by day three surprisingly things had improved.  Anyway we got to our camping spot and got set up then had a quick feed, then started off down the creek.  Not far on Beans decided to head up a small side creek and have a look.  We hadn't separated for much more than 10 minutes when we heard a shot.  We found out later he had walked down a small gut and back up to a log which he looked over to see antlers swivelling around in the ferns.  The stag was sitting down about 6 metres away never to get up again.  A great start to the trip.

Beans young fat stag.

  James and I climbed up to a small clearing I new about and from there sidled around through the bush about 250 metres up from the stream.  A very pretty area but not a lot of sign of deer.  We ended up dropping back to the creek and and heading down stream to a lookout I knew of up to the right.  We arrived and dropped our daypacks and looked up to the faces across the watershed and straight away James spotted a deer.  Through the binos it looked like a hind and we are not happy shooting hinds this time of year as they may have a youngster with them.  We don't want a young deer starving to death on our conscience if you shoot it's mother.
  Anyway we ended up watching this deer for a couple of hours as it fed around the faces opposite.  We had come to the conclusion it didn't have a  fawn with it and we now thought it was a well grown yearling which would be great venison.  James settled in for the long shot.  Probably around 350 metres.  I had the binos on it when James fired.  Unfortunately it looked like the bullet strike was behind and high.  The deer was obviously untouched and didn't hang around too long.  This was a surprising result as James is now an experienced rifleman.  I suggested the scope might be out on the rifle but James reckoned he had shot a deer very recently and there was no problem.  So we put it down to bad luck which was to prove a mistake at a later date.
  We arrived back to camp around 6pm and had a quick brew and a snack then crossed the creek and climbed up to the meat safe clearing.  We sat till dark watching the clearing with no result which was a bit surprising as this clearing usually produced a deer.  We found later that someone had put a stag head into a manuka tree in the middle of the clearing and it was rotting away creating a very unpleasant odor right around the clearing.  I think this was why the deer were't visiting here.
  We ended up having another two enjoyable days in the Ureweras but didn't add to our tally.  James had 2 shots at a close deer and found his scope was definitely out by quite a margin.  So we should have taken the time to resight his scope in. And I had spotted a deer on a face that wouldn't quite present itself for a shot just before dark on the last night. But that didn't seem to matter much as we were still enjoying our time in the bush.

  When we got back to civilisation James was to head back south to Kaikoura as his summer job with Bidfood had come to an end.  I met up with Jocelyn back at Ngongotaha who had been giving her new bike a bit of a work out while I had been gone. And Beans was back to work as well.
  After a day to sort a bit of gear we were off back to Whitianga and had another weekend out with Ken and Vicki on Papillon.  We spent some time at the Mercs and did try to head out for a marlin at one stage but the forecasters got it a bit wrong and Jocelyn started to suffer with sea sickness.  So we headed back in and spent a lazy weekend on board and caught a few nice snapper mornings and evenings.

Just another happy doggy photo.

Sunset at the Mercs

When we got back we caught up with the Blyths who were camping down on the Harbourside Camp.   Their friends Mark and Robin were also there. Another lovely summer seafood bbq was enjoyed with great weather and great company.
  Next we were to head to Coromandel and Fantail bay but I suffered another setback.  I awoke about midnight with my heart doing lots of weird things sometimes racing to over 200 beats a minute and leaping all over the place. Unfortunately I can't remember any erotic dreams that may have set that off and Jocelyn was fast asleep beside me.  The old 111 call went in and I ended up getting carted off to Thames Hospital in the ambulance in the early hours.  The following evening I was sedated and they put the paddles on and gave me a shock that jumped my heart back into normal rhythm.  So I have 3 days of lazing around then I can drive again so  Coro here we come then on the 17th I am back to jump back on Kens boat for a week to fish the game fishing nationals probably in the far north,  while Jocelyn heads to Auckland to stay with sister Joan.  Will let you know how the fishing went.