December 2019 (Christmas!)

December 2019

Christmas was upon us! Mum kindly let us put up a tree to get us into the spirit of things, and the day dawned sunny and beautiful. 

Mum had a full house with all of us staying Christmas eve, and we were feeling suitably festive. 

Of course food and bubbles on Christmas day doesn't hurt either!

With the weather so gorgeous, we elected to have Christmas lunch outside, something we had never done before. It set a new tradition as eating on the deck was wonderful. It was so nice having everyone together again - especially now looking back, knowing what 2020 would have in store.

Full and happy, Ben and I headed off to our second Christmas with his family for the evening, where we stuffed ourselves even more!

With Christmas over, my next stop was a camping trip with my best friend Shyla, whilst Ben headed off for his own camping trip with friends at Mount Maunganui. Shyla and I had booked a campsite late, so choice was rather limited. We settled on Wentworth Valley in the Coromandel, as pretty much everyone else was booked, and Shyla had been once before and remembered it pleasantly.

Beside a river and with good patches of shade, it was lovely, aside from the small fact that the camp owner's idea of 'yes there is room for you last minute' ended up meaning 'pitch you tent directly behind the longdrops, in the forest where no sun gets through'. Did I mention the giant spiders? Happily, after 2 days here the camp emptied out slightly, and we were allowed to shift to sunnier pastures. We were inordinately pleased about this. (see, look at those happy faces).

There were a few other oddities, including no glass allowed in the campsite (this culminated in us popping into the tent every time we needed to pour ourselves a glass of wine - happily we were never questioned on where the wine actually came from). 

The owner of the campsite was also rather unusual, and could often be seen wandering around the campsite in the evenings eating ice-cream and breaking up any parties/searching for glass, followed by the camp security guard, who most definitely had a not-so-subtle-though-they-tried-to-hide it relationship with the great dictator. I haven't had so much entertainment in a campground since the dour campsite receptionist Helga in Germany (who may have not been called Helga, but I feel certain she was). 

As we were in the Coromandel, we decided to head out to the famous Cathedral Cove, which we had never actually gone to before. 

After the drive to get there, we arrived later in the day than we intended. We soon realised we would miss the sunshine on the beach if we hiked it, so we took the water taxi instead, which was rather fun. 

This was our only big trip from camping, the rest of the time we swam in the river, read books and cooked toasted sandwiches (and hid our wine). It was glorious. 

Upon arriving back, Ben and I popped over to Waiheke to see Joy whilst she and her family were over visiting from the UK. 

We spent a lovely day at Palm Beach, one of the many lovely beaches on the island. Here is a photo of me standing in a hole so deep I'm the same height as Joy's son Harvey!