A proper Kiwi Christmas

I woke up to Amiri's frantic shouts of, "Mama!  Come quick!  Something happened!' and Arram's delighted squeals-- he'd run out of words.

We admired the mysteriously-appeared decorations, observed the vanishing of the cookies, and then Santa's fine job of wrapping was turned into confetti within minutes.  The floor became covered wall-to-wall with Duplo blocks, play food, robot toys, ducks, and yo-yos (how did Santa know?)  As it turned out, we had plenty of time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast and debate what we should do with our beautiful day.  We settled on a plan and packed up a picnic.

We drove deep into the Waitakere Ranges, to a little nondescript park in the middle of the National Forest.  There was a beautiful green area that later hosted a wonderful under-the-trees meal-- for us and a dozen other families.  We made some friends.

And there was an oh-so-beautiful beach.

The boys scampered and frolicked.

And got to make lots of sand-related messes.

The beach was bounded by cliffs covered in bush.

Flowing out of the cliffs was a small river of ice-cold, pure artesian water.  It could probably be sold around the world for four bucks a bottle, and here we were splashing our toes in it!

There were also barnacles to poke.

And because it's New Zealand, there were the obligatory feral fowl that turned up to beg in the carpark.

After that we ventured a little further west and had a look.


We finished up the day with a roast dinner that was succulent as, and for dessert we had pavlova with custard and strawberries.