Our glade in Mangawhai

Finally, after 10 months of waiting for the title, we settled on the Tuesday before last, and we are now the owners of some acreage, grass, Totora and Pine trees. So last weekend, being the first weekend of actually owning our piece of land, we went up there and camped. We knew the weather was not conducive to camping, but we didn't care.

It was overcast, but not raining on Saturday, so up until about sundown we didn't get wet. We put up the tent and then went for supplies in town. Then we came back and settled in for the night. Despite the rain we had a good campfire going.

We went to sleep with the rain clattering on our tarp and the camp fire well and truly dead from being drenched. In the morning there were scattered showers in amongst sunshine - but all is well...I had coffee...

...and Kien enjoyed hanging out in the tent. Summer, here we come.

So we went camping...

You know I've talked about camping before, so we made the most of our Christmas/New Year break of the days that weren't already committed by going twice. The second time was on January 3rd, and we hooked up with my friend Kathy and her hubby and daughter out at Ambury Regional Park.

We love this place and have frequented there a number of times, but this is the first time we've actually camped there. It's well worth the effort - or rather lack thereof - this is one of the easiest camping expeditions you can imagine. We had planned to get there around 3pm but it ended up around 5pm. Not that it mattered because it was just so easy finding a nice spot to erect our tent. Even Kien chipped in and helped out.

It's great having another child to play with my child, especially when they get along so well. It was a bit of a worry when about an hour into them playing together they both came to us and said they had made a baby together. Ah, the innocence.











We went for a walk at dusk around the beach and farmstead. The kids just kicked off their shoes after they realised they were coated in mud.



Then there was more running around and getting dirty after we cleaned them up.





There was a beautiful golden glow from the setting sun that cast such a beautiful light through one of the paddocks, so we definitely had to go and run through it.















Lots of energy being burned off. They ran back and forth, chasing the sheep, and it was a wonderful sight to behold.

Roughing it

Who loves camping? Us! We love camping. It's "roughing it", but not really.

When I was in the army my favourite exercises were those out in the field; setting up shelter, digging trenches, radio relay, heating rations on a hexi cooker, and even being on sentry duty. Back then the threat of being sent off to war wasn't real at all, especially for someone with my profile - i.e. female, territorial force signaller, asian, university educated. Believe it or not I actually wanted to be sent on tour when I was regular force for a bit, but, like I said, my profile put me at the bottom of the list. I was just a girl wanting to play soldiers, as far as my commanding officer was concerned, and I guess (to a degree) he was right. I've had many philosophical debates with myself regarding war, the army, and where I come from and what my family has been through. It's complex, multi layered, perhaps paradoxical, but anyway - ANYWAY, I'm not here to talk about the army!

Camping. We love camping! We went camping. A couple of Saturdays ago, after finishing up at work (don't ask) we headed out to Muriwai and set up a tent. It was very cosy.





The beach was right next to us, just over the rise. But first, dinner. No hexi cubes here. We got burgers and fries from the local.



We hid from the wind by eating in the car.



Then we ran over sand dunes.









We kicked sand around as the waves crashed violently before us.







All this happening under the setting sun.















It rained overnight, and early morning, but who cares. We were snug as a bug in a rug - a bug with an umbrella.





After lazily packing up our camp site we went to Maori Bay to see the gannets.









Man, it was one heck of a weekend, and just what I needed to take my mind off things. It was easy, and definitely fun.