today we did two things. this morning we went to a marine reserve about an hour’s drive from home. i say about an hour as it took two hours thanks to the main motorway which transverses the country north to south (State Highway 1) is actually just a single track road. And today seemed to be a popular day for heading north to go on holiday. oh well. we live and learn
anyway, this little area is a nature reserve which means people aren’t allowed to take anything home or fish there. but they can snorkel all over the shop and look at pretty fish go by. or, in the case below, kezia’s jandal float by. rather reminiscent of this incident unfortunately. the jandal was recovered and the reserve remained reserved.
we didn’t snork ourselves as we arrived quite late in the morning and the place was packed so we had to park way up the road.
but we’ll be back with the necessary equipment which can be hired locally if needed
however, we did get to go on a glass bottomed boat for a rather wobbly trip round goat island to look at the huge snappers and other tiddly fish going about their fishy business
here’s some snappers
and here are a load of birds who have painted their accommodation up nicely.
here’s a nice post box we passed. done up fancy for christmas.
the countryside up there is lovely. a bit reminiscent of the lake district with its rolling hills
then we headed over to Omaha beach which is renowned for its lovely huge stretch of golden sand. it was alright. esther had a huge icecream which was so big the foundations of the cornet gave way. rather like a leaky house
the beach was just windy enough that there were some decent waves for the girls to board along. they spent an hour in the water whizzing along and had a whale of a time (not literally)
Omaha is really posh, with a little village of designer beach houses behind the beach. various famous kiwis have places at Omaha including the Prime Minister himself.
there was a topless bronzed chap running along the sand followed by two wetsuit clad lovelies. so i suspect he was someone important. or considered himself to be important. or perhaps he’d stolen their wallets.
after an hour the girls were getting wrinkly so we headed back home for, yup, fush and chups. no snapper unfortunately, so we had hoki (koki?) instead.
tomorrow we’re off to a gorge with some more church friends. we’re meeting early to avoid the traffic. at least that’s the plan.
see ya !