Active days….

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The beginning of the holidays was very wet, the snowdrops which are prolific over our property, are starting to flower, they are loving the rain.

The Science Festival is held all over Dunedin, different institutions take part, the museum being one. We took Luca and Olivia for the day.

First we saw a documentary on Humpback whales in the planetarium, such a cool way to see it, like being in the ocean with them!

Then into the technology room…

Ran into friends from school there, Dunedin really is just a large village 🙂

Then into the butterfly enclosure…

There are 3 levels to the enclosure, butterflies we used to see all the time in Costa Rica are happily living here
Bird feeders all around the walls, they live in there too, not bothering the butterflies, very friendly little guys.

Then it was into the rest of the museum….

Crocodile attack!!!!
Turtle shell!
This is a Himalayan Tahr, they roam in large numbers down here in the south at high altitudes. Big debate on at the moment over them, they were introduced over a century ago to NZ. Hunters come from all over the world to hunt them, this brings in a lot of money to the rural areas (obviously in non COVID times). However they eat the native vegetation , DOC and Forest and Bird want to cull them back to around 10 000 in number, they are estimated to be at around 35 000 currently. The courts are now involved over this, they have put the cull on hold pending more consultation….

The kids also had a long conversation with one of the Paleontologists who patiently answered all their questions, we had to drag them out at 5pm as it was closing. We are so lucky to have this museum, for a small city it is pretty impressive.

Then the weather came right and we have just had the most gorgeous days. We got the bikes out and headed to the beach…

All the recent rain made the track lots of fun!!

What a glorious day it turned into, within 10 minutes the clothes were off…

and into the ocean they went 🙂
Luca and Pica racing across!

The swing a must of course, Rich and I even had a go, the swinging great, it was the getting off that was the issue for us , we just don’t bounce like Luca does 🙂

Yesterday we decided to do a hike that we have been meaning to for a while. Silver Peaks is a magnificent department of conversation ,(DOC), park about 1/2 an hour from us. You hike deep into the bush and get the most incredible views. It took longer than we thought and got home just on dark, but so, so happy to have done it.

There are tracks everywhere some more maintained than others. It was one of the more challenging hikes we have done for awhile but we all loved it.

Quality accommodation was found on the way 🙂

Possum Lodge! (that is what to the sign to the right says)

Things get pretty dense up there, it would be easy to get lost and need to hunker down until light or weather clears, you could see evidence of people having spent the night in there.

There was lots of pig rooting around, Luca spent time practicing quick scaling into the trees in case we ran into them 🙂

We finally made it back to the car, tired but happy. This is a logging road on the other side of the park.

Needless to say after 2 very active days, Luca and Pica are exhausted and having a very quiet Sunday .

The look of love and contentment 🙂

It is a cooler overcast day today, Rich is making lentil soup with produce from our garden, I did a big harvest recently tidying a few things up, it is still producing really well. We are very surprised but not complaining! Luca just been up in his pjs to get some spinach for one of his famous sandwiches!

Easing into the day……… 🙂