Summer holidays

We’ve just spent a lovely few days camping on the east coast of the north island at Ohope.

The campground is in a beautiful spot, with a lovely windswept beach on one side and an estuary on the other.

The campground was pretty busy – as is any beachy spot this time of year – but we got out early on a couple of mornings and had the beach all to ourselves.

We are also spent a morning wading in the mud when the tide was out in the estuary which the kids adored, finding all kinds of creatures…

…and generally squleching a skwerching about!

The kids also managed to catch a few giant fish from the jetty… don’t worry they all went back in.

This really is a very beautiful piece of New Zealand…

We had a lovely time camping together as a family, the children really had a blast. Carter especially, he really didn’t want to come home and Im pretty sure living in a tent is an almost three year old boy’s idea of heaven!

But boy is it good to be home! My own shower (no trek across country to the communal showers, a long wait for a piddly shower – all the while trying not to look at the hair in the drain and sand on the floor – and then to find by the time you get back to the tent your feet are as sandy and dirty as they were before you left), 47 trips to the bathroom per day because no one can combine their toilet stops, dinner cooked in an actual kitchen (not over a gas burner) and including freshly picked vegetables from our garden, children tucked up in their own beds, in their own rooms by 7pm (not 9pm cause it sure is noisy and bright in a tent when you are in a campground – and fun to bounce around on the beds right next to Mum and Dad) and tonight, joy of all joys… my. own. bed. Good night!