After touristic Queenstown we drove to lake Tekapo, which is of the kind of picture perfect type of places with glacier blue water, perfectly coloured flowers (good timing for once!) , snowy mountains in the back.
And then of course, rain, wind and (once more) kids under age to do the main activity: stargazing at one of the university observatories. So next day we continued driving up North, and after hesitating for another okay2stay we opted (well i did, under the excuse of it being nearly my birthday I got to choose) for a close to the beach camping just north of Christchurch. It was great! Just 3min walk to the huge empty beach mirroring the kids running, playgrounds, sand dunes.... (This is where mat hurt his foot, more to follow, as it appeared to be his leg)
A happy meal further (you dont get to turn 33 every day in nee zealand!) and we continued to kaikouri, well a few km before touristy but nice kaikouri, we stopped in Peketa camping. A spacious green camping with views to the beach, amazing stars at night and -yep, I did wake up - a sunset on the sea!
On my birthday after a stroll on the beach, we had dinner in a cafe and it was really good, kids ate well (which is challenging) and personal was really nice. So honest to who we are, we went back there at least three times during our kaikouri adventure. (Referring to us going back and back and back to 58 in poblenou or Voorspoed back then in Mortsel)
In the same 'don't change a winning team' way, we ended up three nights in a row on the camping. So even Pierre had to try the flying fox, with three kids looking at him with eyes full of admiration.
On Monday we finally made it to board the boat and do the whale watching trip. There's only one company running it by boat, the others have seal swimming, helicopter viewing, dolphin encounter, etc on offer. We are quiet limited seen the small age of our kids, most activities here in new zealand begin at 8 or 9 yrs, so we convinced the kids thenselves and others that the boys where already three years old and we took off that well organised and well worthy trip to see one sperm whale twice (to give you an idea of how well run the tour is; the captain positions the boat on the side of the breathing animal, and then when it gets ready to dive, moves the vessel to the back of the animal just to be sure you have a perfect picture/view of the tale!) Jumping dolphins, albatrosses and sealions!!
Late afternoon we went back to the medical centre as Matthias still had not accepted to put his foot back on the ground after a litlle staying-stuck-on-the-slide accident on saturday. On Sunday the doctor had asked to wait before taking images, but today she would. So Pierre and Mat went back armed with some more patience to the very kind people of the centre. Images were taken. Foot was alright (i had put all my love in that first aid bandage!). Upperleg is not. Fractured. And so we ended the day putting his leg 'comfy' warm and without moving for the next four weeks in a green plaster. Woehoe!!
As I speak, he has been helped over it thanks to a lovely drawing from Amélie and William (and a bit of ibuprofen) and we are trying to get over it with the Como Villa wine and getting ready to face a lot of carrying him around, dealing with Williams jalousy, but then also, fully realising it is better to have this here and only just that ! Cheers!
Oh!/and thank you all for the nice birthday wishes! See, now that's a birthday I ll never forget ;-)
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