Weddings, friends and beautiful places to be

 Since I last wrote, we have:

• had a night at Alan and Greg's place in Rolleston
• we had intended to visit them but stay overnight at the NZMCA Park at Weedons. However when we arrived they invited us to stay. So I manoeuvred the motorhome on their sloping driveway - across it with the ramps under the driver side wheels so we weren't anymore off-balance than we already are ...

Greg and Alan with David and me at their place

I sent this photo to Derek in the morning, after Alan had gone to work.

• such a good night of catching up. I drank some chardonnay - as a test, you understand, to see if it still had a deleterious effect on me. Not so bad as I remembered ...
• attended Gavin and Deb's wedding at Waipara Adventure Centre near Amberley.
• a lovely wedding the celebrations (pre, during and post) went from Friday afternoon to late Sunday morning. 
• Joy Cowan and I did the last minute shopping for food and I didn't buy any shoes, nor did I buy a raincoat (having left all of the 5 that I own back in Waikanae...)
  
• we were camped down in the lower wooded and beautifully shaded area with Joy and Jim (he was the celebrant) in their poptop camper plus awning and gazebo, Shane and Glenda in their Swift caravan, while the rest of the guests were accommodated in bunkrooms up at the centre. 

Lovely shade - so necessary on the extremely hot days we've been having.

 

• It was wonderful to spend time with Joy who I knew through work at DOC and to meet and get to know her husband Jim. He is a really interesting guy whose current job is men's advocate for Women's Refuge. See why he's interesting?
• I took on doing the Facetime videoing for people who couldn't attend - Gav's parents and friends in the UK. I do enjoy that role, especially being able to get people to interact with the watching audience...

 

I'm not entirely sure what Deb was saying to Gav here, however he was very clear about how much he loves her.

• I drank 2 glasses of chardonnay and one glass of fizzy wine and found that the effects of wine-drinking that caused me to give it up a year ago still prevail, so there will be no more!
  
• had a night staying with Dean and Phaedra in Oxford where Dean's parents, Raewyn and Alan arrived shortly after us. I remember attending their wedding so many years ago - Raewyn is a cousin (2nd or 3rd, I think, but the closest relatives on his mother's side in NZ) of my first husband, Lou. 
• it was lovely to see all of them, including Dean and Phaedra's son Liam who was part of the team on the Alexander Roaster and Battery remediation
• Dean has some pet sheep - they really are very tame and have established their timetable for being fed sheepnuts. Woe betide Dean if he's late! They are very effective at calling him in concert at 6am and late in the afternoon ...

Dean and the sheep. The one with the mohawk in the back row is a self shedding sheep whose wool just falls off.

• travelled over Arthur's Pass across the Main Divide on the most gloriously sunny day - such beautiful mountains and valleys that look spectacular in the sun, just as they do when snow-covered under a lowering sky, to be fair. Amazing terrain and a fabulous drive.
• we stopped just above the Otira overbridge as the phone rang and it was Marta (our former daughter in law) calling from Scotland. Lovely to talk with her, as always.
• called in to the supermarket at Hokitika for essential supplies and to the bedding shop where I got a new pillow for David who had complained his neck was getting sore. The bedding shop had combined with my favourite shoe shop and I did buy a pair of shoes
  
• headed for Lake Mahinapua to stay 2 nights at the DOC site there with Ian and Irene who had made their way down the West Coast to meet up with us.
• because they had been cooking one pot dinners on their single gas hob for the last few weeks, I did dinner: salmon, feta and silverbeet quiche, salad and new potatoes 

The quiche. I have worked out (after 4+ years) that baking things need to go right up near the top of the motorhome oven - didn't take me long, did it?

Pre-dinner nibbles were coming to an end so David decided to finish off the cheese, it being inefficient to put it away in the fridge...

• I took David, I&I to the Treetops Walk (I waited and bought t-shirts and a raincoat and had a coffee and a piece of gingercrunch). 
• Then took them into Hokitika so they could do the laundry while I had lunch with Fiona, Vicki and Hutchy. Fiona and I worked together on the mine remediation projects, Hutchy works in DOC too (not sure what her role is), and Vicki used to own and run the motel I stayed in regularly for 18 months - she and I used to drink oaky chardonnay together ...
  

L-R Fiona, Vicki, Hutchy, me in Fiona's back garden. Lunch was amazing sandwiches from the Hokitika Sandwich Company - very delicious. I am not sure that I paid Fiona for mine ... Must check up with her!

 

• filled with water at Fiona's house while she was at work, and at the Challenge petrol station, we got an issue with one of our gas bottles resolved, filled the other bottle, bought an icecream each (magnums) and headed back to the lake

Once back at the lake, we all stopped Irene going inside to blog - she was concerned that Mary (owner of the little camper) would think something had happened if there was no blogpost. So I sent these photos to Mary to show all was well and that we (they) had been very busy getting the washing done. It still needed airing on our return so out it went on the Seigfried Lines - including Irene's knickers which can be seen if you look closely enough ...

I hung our sheets and pillowcases on a guy rope that doubled as a washing line and the small stuff went on the octopus which I hung on the bike rack.

 

• in a convoy the next day, we travelled to the site of the Brunner mine and walked the Memorial path. An amazing place, one of the Tohu Whenua - places of our stories. DOC does a phenomenal job restoring and preserving these sites and making them accessible for people to visit and learn our history.
• then hugs goodbye as we were heading for Murchison and we had persuaded I&I to go to Nelson Creek, given Shantytown is closed for renovation. 
• It was a very windy (both long i and short i) drive for us until we got to the Upper Buller Gorge
  
• I was driven to distraction by the sandflies in Murchison - probably because I sat under a tree rather than out in the open (smothered in insect repellent which they just had to investigate ...). 
• Also I was really tired - poor sleep the night before (awake from 2am to 4.30am). I have discovered that zero alcohol beer has the same effect on my sleep as wine with alcohol... Ah well, good to discover these things so they can be eliminated from my diet.
  
• I&I complained that it was very windy at Nelson's Creek and they couldn't put the awning up

On Thursday we headed about an hour or so up the road to a POP (ParkOver Property) in Tapawera thinking maybe we would go for a bit of a bike ride (just so the bikes can get down off the rack this trip... (Update: no, the bikes stayed hoist on their own petard - it was too hot for going riding. Blobbing and blogging instead.)

And then Friday we are going to stay a couple of nights with Ann and Salvi  (double yay!!) before heading to Koromiko on Sunday and home on Monday.

Then the packing can start in earnest!

In the meantime though, I will do another post which will be only photos and captions. There are just too many for one post to support ...