Another hot day on the beach ☀?

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Well I did manage to make it up the Mount this morning, we met Laura and Rhyd at the bottom, the boys ran up, the girls walked to the top. the views were great up there and it was another nice sunny day. we could see clearly over to the port of Teuranga where two huge cruise ships were docked. we ran back down and bumped into Gareth and Shell who were in the midst of a monster 10 miler then back for a quick shower and change ready to meet everyone for breakfast. We went back to the slow fish, and had another great breakfast, I was surprised we'd all managed to get a seat in there-we must have taken up most of the outside seating area!

Now when you ask Reuben what he's done at school and he says 'don't know' or 'can't remember' you would think that a usual attention span for a 5 year old, so imagine our surprise when he looked across the cafe and said 'that's the boy we played rugby with' of course it couldn't be-that was at Lake Wanaka in the South Island about a week ago. Well it turns out that indeed it was the French boy Uri who had joined in with the boys at the campsite! Small world hey?

After breakfast we all went separate ways to either do a bit of shopping (we still had to get secret Santa presents) and I was desperate to get to the chemist for some antihistamines. We'd all been bitten at some point by either sandflys or mozzies, but on this particular morning the itching was driving me crazy, I felt like I had wasps in my socks. I counted a good 30+ bites that had been there from about the time we were at Franz and Fox glaciers, and I was getting bitten pretty much daily since. I got some tablets, cream and 40% deet repellent, and touch wood since then I've been fine.

I did manage to get a secret Santa and a few other bits as well, and treated myself to some new trainers. They were a bit on the expensive side, but I'd seen them 2 years ago in Oz and as you can't get them in the UK, I thought it might be a nice present to myself. I just need to make sure I use them when I get home now-all this good living makes for a tighter waist band!

We all managed to meet up back at the beach, where Reuben had a doppelgänger-everyone had to do a double take when they saw a little ginger kid in the sea wearing pretty much the same rash vest as Reuben, and even panicked thinking he was in there without one of us, but it turns out it was just a lookalike!



It was really hot on the beach today-the sun is so powerful over here, I've resorted to wearing factor 50 as the 30 doesn't seem strong enough. Michelle and Laura had a go at body boarding and I walked into town with the boys to get something to eat. Cath and Carey decided to make an early escape and headed back to Pukekohe to get the Christmas Day prep underway. Jan and Den walked the mount towards the end of the day when although still warm was probably the coolest part of the day so far.

Back at the main house, Gareth was IC food tonight and made up a lovely tea of all the bits that we'd left over from the last couple of days. We finished the night by playing a game of Pictionary, where no one could fathom Dens thinking, (outside the box? inside the box?) Daryl misread words and drew the wrong thing, Gareth lost the will to live after jan drew a plane (rhymes with insane-how did he not get that) and Rhys was accused of cheating, and giving his winning team extra points. Maybe one of those times you had to be there, but entertaining nonetheless!

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