Icecream

The last few days have been a bliss of warmth, sunshine and ice cream. The ducklings have grown bigger, but retain their yellow fuzz and come to visit us several times a day. In fact, today they managed to all seperate and get lost from their mother, so we and another gap yearer spent a while carting them about the get them back into a concerted group, to the suspected (but unconfirmed obviously) relief of their questing mother duck.
Yesterday, we headed into town, admiring the blooming roses that adorn the pathways. Our goal was exciting - to purchase presents for Christmas day! We went into the $2 Store we have long had our eye on for this purpose and seperated, each to fill their basket with no more or less than 10 presents for the other. As an acitivity, this was awesome fun and really boosted the whole Christmas mood, which is oddly hard to come by despite the glittering decorations in the campsite. Probably something to do with the 30 degree heat...
Anyways, after buying our gifts and both faithfully promising not to look at the other's bag, we got a subway sandwich each and had a mini picnic, before going to New World to buy the storable/non-fresh stuff we needed for our Christmas meals. Once we had picked all that up, which insures we'll have something to eat if we can't get to the supermarket in Auckland before it closes due to bus lateness or some horrible thing like that, we started on back to the campsite.
We were waylaid however, by the drawing of the competition. Let me explain. Over the last year, Hastings New World has been displaying a very shiny BMW in the foyer. This BMW was the prize in a draw that would occur on the 22nd Decemeber, and which you could enter every time you spent money in store. Given that we have been here a month, and bought all our food supplies from New World, we had collected quite a few of these prize draw entry slips. We had faithfully designated each and every one with our names and numbers, hoping for the Christmas miracle which would see this car (and its £22,000 retail value) land in our laps. (Well, not literally, that would probably result in us being squashed). The giant cement mixer that had been hired to spin the slips was standing in the carpark, the crowds had gathered and the policeman reached in to grab the winning slip...with bated breath we waited! Alas, we did not win, instead the car went to a serendipitous local, but nonetheless it was an entertaining moment.
Today, we have been sorting out all the stuff in the tent and repacking our bags, so that tomorrow morning we can be up, pack away the tent and sleeping bags, and gone on the trek into town in time to catch our very early bus at 7.30am. This bus will whisk us back up the motorway, to Auckland, where we can check into our hotel (a hotel! After a month in a tent! Sublime!) and then hot foot it to the supermarket to buy the rest of the fresh ingrediants needed for Xmas. Once we have lugged those back to the hotel (!), we shall settle in for the Christmas Eve movies, possibly garnished with a pizza.

In the last post, I believe I promised some tales of New Zealand that we had gathered for a time when news was low. Thus, let me tell you about the animals. When driving along, the last thing you expect to see on the side of the road, is a turkey. However, a turkey we did indeed see. Now, you know all this, I put it down in the blog when it occurred. However, since that moment, we also came accross a goat, a sheep, several chickens and even a horse, standing at the side of the road. No tethers, no concern for the cars, just calmly standing on the green between the road and the fence of their apparently unsecure fenced environment. We found it amusing that, having gone to such lengths to escape the fettering hands of their owners, they then turned about face and remained convieniently positioned nearby, awaiting recapture and, no doubt, dinnertime. Oddities.

Today, the 23rd, we would like to wish my Dad a very Happy Birthday! Have a great day in the snow! xxx