Jack and Katrina's Place

This Christmas break we headed south to see the southern relatives. 1st leg was across Cook strait on the car ferry. Even on a 'nice' day it was blowing hard in Cook Strait, here are Guy and Jack on the deck of the ferry getting their hair re-styled.

We stopped for the night at Goose Bay just south of Kaikoura, for our first night camping as a family. We had a lovely campsite in a valley, tucked between the hills and the railway line and State highway 1. We explored the rocky coast and then walked back across the main road and railway line for dinner. Guy found sleeping in a tent unbearably exciting and it was nearly 10pm (and only just dark) when he stopped rolling about and went to sleep. He was pleased to crawl into his mummys sleeping bag in the morning, 'we are like caterpillars in a chrysalis mummy' yes quite, then we tumbled out of bed to watch the freight train roar past. It was one of several which along with the long haul trucks had kept Daddy awake most of the night. They weren't all that frequent, trucks maybe 5 minutes apart, enough to be dozing off before, brooouggghmm another convoy would rattle by. Finally I gave up and wandered down to the beach in the dark, after midnight, to watch the hard blue white stars rising out of the sea to the east.