Hol-ahh-daze!!!

Over and over I can hear Bax sounding out the word as we drive away from Optiki. Hol-arrrggghhh-days. It's still early morning really but we've had breakfast (meat pie and a drink - don't tell anyone!) and now we're heading around the East Coast to Anaura Bay. Other people might choose to go down in a straight line to Gisborne and then pop up to Anaura Bay but G has never done it the long way roung before so here we go...

I spent holidays down here as a kid so it's sort of familar to me and I know that the best bit is the drive to Te Kaha, of course that's the bit where I fall asleep so I miss it.

We arrive at the bay at 2pm and we can't find my aunt Gas. We're staying on the D.O.C. land rather than the Motorcamp. We're right on the beach near an ancient Morton bay Fig tree, up a dusty road. After a bit of crafty guess work I find Gas reading a book in a pocket of shade and we set up camp.

We've cobbled togetther a jury-rigged camping arraingment by borrowing lots of bits from various bods. G was so sure it'd be a disaster that he didn't think we should invest in camping until we knew we liked it.

Did we like it?! Did we ever.

We had a whole week of pure sunshine. A couple of afternoon a southerly came in and we had to battern down the hatches but other than that we had cloudless days and warm evenings. My uncle went out twice a day to set traps and nets so we ate crayfish and fresh fish everymeal. And when my cousin Joe came for a few days he dived for Paua and we aate it fried. Others camping there came sniffing round and all said that my aunt cooks paua better than anyone on the coast. One day Joe caught a kingfish over 10kg on only a line off the back of the dinghy. We all took photos and he couldn't get the smile off his face. We got 14 steaks off that fish, plus we smoked the tail section (about a foot long) and I did another whole bit as cerviche (cut very finely, raw but marinated in lemon juice and coconut cream). We had gurnard and trevally and goat fish and kawai. On a couple of days we had to go into Tolega Bay for red meat because last year my Uncle and his mate Lynn both got gout from eating too much seafood. We also had fresh salad from Gas' garden in Gisborne and the most beautiful fresh corn (10 for $6 from a road side seller).

Every day we swam and walked the beach and lay about and bathed the kids in the gubbas and chatted and played scrabble, shared the chores, went out in the boat to help my uncle. We had a big camp of 5 couples and five kids of various ages and three dogs. Lots of extras arrived everyday for lunch or to stay a few nights and we moved things around and fitted everyone in. One day one of the stars of my favorite NZ TV show arrived (he is married to my uncles daughter and they have just had a baby) and we got on really well and we had a big chat about babies and his show and NZ TV in general.

Django loved the beach. He followed people on their morning runs up the beach and must have run its distance three times a day.

Bax was befriended by ten year old Willy and the two of them played all day with Bax's cars and his plastic tricke we'd taken with us.

Everyone loved Iz and she got lots of cuddles. Both kids seemed to grow about three inches each, and Bax' words multiplied - some not so good additions thanks to the lovely Will I suspect, such as poo-bum.

One New Year's Eve we had a big communal dinner with about 5 families and then sat around a bonfire and Tony pulled out his guitar and we all sang Pink Floyd and the Eagles. The older kids toasted marsh mellow on the old fork I used as a kid.

On Jan 2 we packed up our parts of the camp, leaving the space free for some new arrivals due that day and headed off slowly towards Hawkes Bay. We stopped in the visit both my cousins who had deserted camp before NYE.

At Hawkes Bay we checked into a swish motel - washed clothes, washed oursleves, slept in real beds, ate pizza, watched TV, turned on the AC. The weather had turned and the winds had come in. It was quite severe and we were glad to be in safe, warm, dry place.

Next morning we toddled off to the Careys' and spent the next 4 days there eating, drinking, swimming in the pool, making chit chat with a long line of important guests, including an MP, a number of very famous biz people and a notorious art dealer, plus their assorted kinder.

On our last night in the HB I went out for dinner with my dear old friend Heloise and we sat in a Thai Restuarant for hours and hours eating slowly, un interrupted, sans children, she drank glasses of wine and told me long, dramatic stories about mutual friends and I listened and let my sun weary self relax. and slump a little with the comfort of it all. I got into bed at 2am, got up at 6am, got on the road at 9am and arrived back in Auckland at 5pm.

Now the house is full of washing, the children are asleep in their own beds, dinner is cooking in the crock pot, G is mowing, and I am preparing myself for work on Monday.

I am sure that I have missed bits of the story and I know my blog will be full of little snippets for the weeks to come, mainly because my mind will take a little longer than an eight hour drive to come back to the city.