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Published: January 19th 2010
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Every year for the past 7 years or so we have taken a summer holiday with a group of our closest friends and their children. This year we decided to visit some of the places on our bucket list - The Marlborough Sounds, Nelson and to walk the Abel Tasman track. Our friends thought that this was a grand idea! "Organize it, and we will come", they said. And so, on December 28th, the Ross', the Moores and the Byroms - 6 adults & 7 kids crossed the Cook Strait and headed up the Kenepuru Sounds to Waitaria Bay...
Two hours and 2000 bends after leaving Picton we arrived at our Waitaria Bay farmhouse which is to be our home for the next five days. Having organised this over the telephone and not knowing what to expect it was a welcome relief to find the house to be a lovely four bedroom home set in the middle of the sheep paddocks (complete with dishwasher no less!). Our hosts Dave and Brenda made us all feel welcome and it wasn't long before the kids were all off exploring the farm. The boys started their nightly ritual of setting the possom traps
and the girls introduced themselves to the chooks, the little piglet, Paulette and the thoroughbred race horses in the back paddock. Yay, we won't see them for the wee while.
Unfortunately the weather wasn't particularly kind to us over this period . The wind blew like bill-i-o, the drizzly clouds hung on the hills surrounding us- and it was COLD for most of the week. Nevertheless, the guys went out fishing in the dingy a couple of times (no fish for tea tho'), the kids had a ball floundering, swimming off the jetty, playing spotlight in the paddocks in the pitch black, playing tiggy on the hay bales and basically getting out there and being "kids". The boys were determined from day one to shoot a pig - and try as they may the pigs remain free. God knows what we would have done if they had come home with one - I'm sure the Byrom's would have had it sorted tho'! They weren't convinced that us girls had come across a couple of them during our "trek" up the nearby hillside - but R doesn't squeal like that for no reason.
One of the fine days we
took a Tiki Tour way up to the top of the Sounds to Titirangi Bay. This is reached by driving on a surprisingly well maintained gravel road for about an hour. At the end of the road we had to drive down an extremely narrow and very, very scary road down from the top of the hill to the bay below. OMG, I don't remember feeling as nervous on a road before. Any wrong move and ... It's not worth thinking about. Titirangi Bay is one of the Northern most bays in the Sounds and one of the few with a lovely sandy beach. The adjacent DOC campground was full of tents and boats and even the odd campervan (how did they survive the drive down?). A great day was had by all...
Another excursion taken by the adults was to the nearby Bayview Winery. All I have to say on this is that the wine is absolutely delicious and the house has to be seen to be believed.
Ashleigh celebrated her 14th birthday during our time here and was rapt to receive tickets to the Kelly Clarkson concert in April (amongst other things). We even made her
a cake!
All too soon it was time to pack up and move on to the next stop - our old haunt, Nelson....
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