Mid-Winter Fun

We have just returned from a 5 day holiday and had a great time away. After the previous few days of awful stormy cold, cold weather, the conditions couldn't have been more beautiful (despite the freezing cold - but hey, it is *mid winter* afterall lol).

We set off mid-Sunday morning and took our time driving to our destination (staying in an old farm house) in time for putting dinner on to cook.

The first day we went off caving with my parents who had also travelled up with us and were organising caving with various groups of people over the next week. Why in my mind did I imagine a lovely large cave opening off ground level? When in reality it was a small slit in the ground? Yikes! For one who hasn't caved before I put on my brave face for the kids and in we went. Nathan turned out to be a natural caver (not surprising really considering his climbing skills elsewhere). Danielle wasn't too sure, but was ok as long as Grampy carried her for most of the way (she did venture off on her own a few times which was great to see her relaxed enough to do that). We crawled through one squeeze (which was interesting with Simon with an arm in a sling from a recent shoulder dislocation), crossed an stream (using grampy as a "rock" to stand on), sat and looked at many stallegtites and stallegmites and saw a few glow-worms when we switched our headlamps off.

(photo's to follow - I didn't have my underwater housing for my camera with me).

The next day we drove to a local beach for a few hours. All wrapped up warm in the chilly sun the kids had fun collecting shells, stones and drawing in the sand. Simon and the kids grampy tried some surf casting, nothing was caught, but there were plenty of fish nibbling.



For evening entertainment we had my mum's Wii Fit with us which was great fun and meant a few late nights while exercising lol.

I had expressed interest to my mum about learning how do flax weaving. So she bought her books and tools along and I made my first few pieces. I made my first pieces for Danielle (a basket and a headband) which she was very pleased with. The kids were enthused about helping prepare the flax and after they'd gone to bed we got into weaving.


The next morning we said goodbye to my parents and headed off to stay with friends for the night. That afternoon we headed up the mountain to have a quick play in the snow and then the next morning returned with our friends for sliding around on a tarpaulin before heading off home after lunch.


(yes B, I did nick your pic off facebook since mine were all back of head shots lol).