holidays - part one

It's the school holidays again, and we have a two trips planned - here's part one. On Saturday we got up bright and early and drove to Greymouth. It was a quick trip at that time of the morning, so three hours later we were getting ready for the first of Miss L's dances at the competitions.

L danced five times over three days, and blew us away by winning her demi-character, barefoot, jazz, jazz championship and the most promising ballet dancer under 12 years of age. All that nagging to get her to practice was worth it!

As the dancing was spread out it gave us time to catch up with friends, drive down to Hokitika for lunch, take the kids to the swimming pool and visit a local beach. I even got some op-shopping in!

With the hubby taking a couple of days off, we had a  leisurely drive home yesterday. The weather was warm and summery, so we played at being tourists.

First stop was at Punakaiki to see the Pancake Rocks. A few metres into the walk we came across a weka family, the chicks were the cutest little fluff balls. I never get tired of taking photos of the nikau palms either.

The high tide meant that we actually got to see the blowhole blowing - not something you see everyday.

The rock formations at Pancake Rocks are quite unusual, but with a low battery I didn't take many photos.

After a quick coffee and a wander around the craft shop we were back on the road. Next stop was a small beach at Fox River, which is a favourite of mine. It's featured before here.

Before we got to Westport we took a detour to Tauranga Bay to visit the seal colony. It's a short walk to the viewing area, and you can smell the seals before you see them.

At first it's actually quite hard to spot them, as they are camouflaged against the rocks. But once you start looking you see more and more. They don't all lie around asleep, some were chasing each other, while others hopped from rock to rock. The photos below all have three seals in them, some are harder to spot than others.

After that we stopped in Westport for lunch (and more op shops) and were home by 3 to check all our animals hadn't forgotten us. Part one of the holidays is over, now I'm looking forward to this coming weekend's adventure.