Another day or three

Where oh where do the days disappear? The answer is ….along with the weeks, they just slip on by, it’s already nearly the end of January. What have we been up to? Well, not a lot really, busy here in camp with lots of people coming and going, luckily the dickheads are not so prevalent with more and more lovely families in camp. Of course the family atmosphere will change slightly in a couple of weeks when school starts up again after the long summer break.

Garry came to visit for a couple of days, it was lovely to have him here where the conversation flows, problems of the world are solved, and a few laughs are had. Oh and Garry also solved another of our problems, the problem with Roys fishing reel. After their repair job that Roy and Garry sorted at the end of last year as there was an issue with the handle spinning around when it wasn’t supposed to.

Two minds are better than one!

After taking the reel to pieces and checking that the thingamajig was connecting with the whatsitsname and making a few tweaks whilst holding their mouths in the right position, it’s now running perfectly, exactly as it is supposed to work.

Antony has been up most weekends to visit and last weekend his mate Andrew came along to stay as well. Andrew went off with Roy on his evening rounds for a bit of entertainment.

Who are those two high vis vest wearing blokes?

It’s a Roy and Andrew!

It was great having Antony and Andrew here, we played cards (five crowns), board games (Sequence and a new game for us called Ticket to ride) and caught up on their news. Andrew is patiently waiting for all his visas etc to come through so he can join his partner in Chile where Katia is a Doctor. It’s been nearly 12 months of waiting so far, Covid has a lot to answer for!

Another day Bruce came down on his day off to mow the grass around the bus, it’s now looking very tidy.

One man went to mow…

…went to mow

Manicured lawn around the van

And just for a change of scenery, once a week I am going up to the Rangers office to help out a little by looking through the camera cards for pests (and errant birds). There are over 50 cameras set up all around the park, some are near bait stations in the bush where the motion activated cameras take a photo of activity. I have to say that most activity is wind blown grasses, snails and spiders and lots of birds activating the cameras. There is the odd sneaky mouse that flashes on past the camera and some human activity as well.

I can sit in front of a computer screen with my headphones on whilst listening to a book and go through the hundreds, no thousands, of photos each week. It saves the Rangers from hours of screen time and enables them to do other things that require their attention. Anything that I’m not sure of or want them to check, I just note the card/photo/date/time and they check it over with an expert eye. And yes, I have found a few interesting things including kiwi who has gone walkabout!!

On the bright side

They say that good things come along if we wait around long enough and with the New Year it seems we have mostly nice people back in camp. People are friendly, cheery and generally looking out for each other which is so nice to see and be a part of. It’s the little things that tend to make us smile;

-the little kid who learns to ride a bike without training wheels and is so proud of their efforts, or

-the other child who finally gets their turn to bat and hits the ball for 6 with everyone cheering them on, or

-the extended family group playing games together, or

-the dad teaching his youngster how to dive for “treasure” in the shallows.

It all brings a smile to our faces.

Then there are the campers who surprise you with gifts.

Crayfish for dinner…split and cooked on the bbq with a chilli, lime and coriander butter

Scallops anyone?

Scallops ready to be cooked.

I’m not a fan of scallops, I know weird right? but I blame it on the fact that I ate my fair share of them as a kid when on holidays in the Bay of Islands they were in plentiful supply and Mum would fry them in butter for us for breakfast. I just find them too rich besides, some shellfish and Crustacea I react to and can end up in an itchy blotchy mess so I’m happy to leave them for Roy to enjoy. Just so you know, I don’t react to crayfish 😉.

Over the past three years we have watched with great interest a mum who walks into the park with her daughter, I wave to her but she always seems shy and self contained so we don’t interfere. Mum walks in wearing a large backpack that initially the wee one was carried in, but now mum seems to carry an array of books and games for her daughter. Before Christmas I finally approached mum to say hello and to say how much we enjoyed watching her with her daughter. It turns out she is Russian and is very quiet and reserved but she loves Shakespear and they love walking around the park, watching the birds on the beach and enjoying the bush walks. It seems she carries books on NZ birds, flora and fauna and is teaching her 3yo daughter all about the outdoors. We always wave and say hi, but just before Christmas Ksenia brought us a gift, she has been doing some sort of baking course and she brought us some of her Russian Honey cake and chocolate cake. OMG, they were the most amazingly light, not too sweet, delicious cakes I have eaten. On the 6th January, Ksenia arrived bearing a gift for us, a beautiful honey cake stunningly decorated. She explained the significance of the date for her, the Russian orthodox Christmas equivalent.

Russian honey cake

The filling and icing is very light and mousse-like with a cream cheese/sour cream tang to it whilst the cake itself is very light with it being surprisingly not sweet as you would expect with honey. Luckily we had friends visiting for dinner and the cake appeared in time for dessert. Wade & Lindsay and Eti & Rona also enjoyed the beautiful cake as did some of the rangers the following day.

We’ve had good other good friends come to visit. Pat & Sue whom we used to travel with quite a bit were visiting from Christchurch. It was absolutely fabulous to meet up with them again and it was like time dissolved and we just picked up where we left off. Of course the conversation went on for some time and I forgot to take any pictures as were were too busy catching up on 2 and half years since we last saw each other in person. Of course we have regularly kept in touch but it’s so nice to be face to face.

Antony has been to stay a few times, the last time he brought with him a new board game for us to play called Ticket to Ride. It’s a great game, doesn’t go on for too long and makes a nice change to cards.

The other good news is that the parcel I sent to Alex, Ian and Callum arrived safely…unlike the previous parcel which has mysteriously disappeared. The parcel contained amongst other things lots of knitting for Callum including a jumper that his Nana asked me to knit. I ended up reknitting that as well as other bits and pieces to replace all that was lost in the other parcel. Alex sent through this picture of Callum wearing the jumper, she told me it was the only time he stays still for any length of time.

Sleeping, dinosaur wearing Callum

Tis the season…?

It’s the festive season when all are supposed to be kind and nice to each other….well, the reality is more like a Tui Ad – Yeah right!

For our offshore readers, Tui is a brand of NZ beer which ran an advertising campaign for many years that made some sort of statement which was always followed by Yeah Right! An example is below,

Tui billboard

We always knew that this year would be very different to any other year, we will call it the post Covid effect. The result of that effect is some people seem to believe that they are very entitled, with no self responsibility and have a very aggressive attitude in some cases. No matter what, there is no excuse for some of the language and behaviours we have experienced over the past few days. We have put up welcome signs at the pest proof gate and notices about being kind to each other, it just seems to have escaped an awful lot of people.

The Ranger written sign at the entrance to the park

This season is really testing our mettle and I am having to constantly remind myself to breathe in, breathe in…….and out. We’ve had experiences this year that we have never encountered before, and quite frankly I never want to experience them again. Some people are just plain nasty (and yes, police reports have been filed by both us and Rangers) and they should just stay at home. We do remind ourselves, and we are constantly reminded by the majority of lovely campers that we encounter, that these not so nice people are fortunately in the minority, however they do colour your view of people in general. Rant over.

On to much nicer things.

My garden is flourishing although I am handpicking off the greedy little caterpillars that are making a meal of my lettuces. The pukekos are thrilled at the juicy little green caterpillars I throw to them every morning. The caterpillars seem to magically appear each day after munching away on the lettuces over night, and they even took a fancy to my tomatoes at one stage too.

I have a new addition to my garden, a lovely solar bee light that was given to us by Helen (Park Ranger), Rob and their daughters along with a lovely card made by the girls. The girls drew lovely pictures on my garden sign to brighten it up a bit as well.

Busy bee

We have already picked lettuces and of course herbs, and the tomatoes are doing well, we just hope they will ripen before we leave otherwise the Rangers will have to eat them all.

Unusually, we actually saw the New Year in this year, we went down to the beach with over half of the campers to watch the fireworks display off the Skytower.

Sky tower fireworks

However, we were all back to our respective abodes and tucked up in bed before 12.30am, it was a very quiet and subdued affair. I think that we are all ready for a new year and a fresh start, if only the rest of the world would come up to scratch!

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year, stay safe out there and remember to be kind to each other.