We have just had a week-long staycation! Yes a vacation where you stay at home and enjoy the sights. This was instigated by having friends from Wellington come and stay for the week. It was nice relaxing at home, seeing some of the sights of our lovely region, and enjoying lots of eating out and drinking the odd wine or two! We were very lucky with the weather, it only rained at once in the middle of one night, so we all got lots of vitamin D. Here are some of the highlights of the week.
Mapua estuary boat trip on the
Flat Bottomed Fairy. This is very close to home, and is a 20 minute scenic cruise around the estuary. The ferry is designed to take cyclists from Mapua to Rabbit Island (and vice versa) as part of the cycle trail that is being developed in the region. As a special deal adults can take the cruise without disembarking for $5 with kids free! Money well spent.
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| the Flat Bottomed Fairy heading to the beach, Rabbit Island is on the right |
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| all aboard, cyclists first! |
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| view of the Mapua Wharf from the ferry |
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| seaside houses, with the mountains behind (see my comment on the last photo of this post) |
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| some of the houses, are still quite "original"! |
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| we even saw a man walking on the water! (paddle boarding) |
A trip to
Kaiteriteri and Little Kaiteriteri, which are two gorgeous golden beaches near the Abel Tasman National Park. In the summer these places are packed and I find it all a bit overwhelming, I much prefer the quiet of the winter months, and as I'm no swimmer it's fine by me!
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| the kids searched for shells on the golden sands |
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| Miss L practicing her cartwheels |
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| we went on a bush walk |
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| the kids had fun collecting the honeydew off the beech trees and eating it! (yes that tiny wee drop on the end of the hair by H's finger) |
On the last day, we went to the
Centre of New Zealand, which happens to be on a steep hill overlooking Nelson city with fabulous 360 views. I've just learnt it isn't "actually" the centre of the NZ! (check out the link if you're interested in the history etc).
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| the kids trying to see our house! |
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| which I think is somewhere near the red X! |
There was a great panorama of all the mountains (which was impossible to take a photo of!) The Twins and Mt Arthur are the two mountains that we see from our place, and are the ones in the 4th and 5th photos of this post taken from the ferry. Following the staycation the hubby had to jump on a plane to India, so it was great to have him around for a week.
Wow that scenery is amazing I think I would want to have a staycation if I lived there too! My two favourite habitats sea and mountains.That's a great picture of the man on the paddle board! I have only started seeing them over here this year.
ReplyDeleteWhat does the honeydew taste like?
Sarah x
Hi Sarah, yes i feel very lucky to be living back here, even if it means my hubby does have to spend more days away from home for work, but don't think I could live in a city anymore. Honeydew, tastes very sweet, like honey, its actually excreted from scale insects that feed on the tree. So the kids love telling everyone it's insect poo! S:)
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