Lunch at the lake

It was a beautiful day on Saturday so we decided to take a sandwich and flask and have lunch at Lake Waihola.

There were not a lot of people there, much to our surprise, just one or two families about. More around at the boating, waterskiing area than at the swimming area where we were. Once more I missed an opportunity to go for a swim. The water wasn't too cold and not a lot of people. And we had a little bay to ourselves :) A really pleasant  spot to sit, eat and watch families enjoying the day.

There were the usual gulls hanging about looking for a free lunch.

This is a black billed gull and is only found in New Zealand.

Quite a pretty bird I think.

Over the track from where we were was the camping ground.

You can see it over the fence here. Quite a small one but just 20 minutes out of the city so you don't have to drive too far

to feel like you have escaped the madding crowd.

We stayed a couple of hours and then decided to take the scenic route home so set off over the hill and out to the coast road. This was the view looking back at the lake.

We drove home with native flax and toetoe on one side of the road and the Pacific Ocean on the other. The plan  was to stop and buy an ice cream but at $3.50 each (a rip off price) we decided to wait until we got home and have a free one :)

Another lovely outing on a lovely southern summers day.

Diana

A 'cluster' of scooters

What do you call half a dozen scooters waiting for their boys to come and ride them? A clutch? A group? A pile? A flock? A herd? I don't know but I think a 'cluster' sounds good.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, rather cool and threatening to rain, I went with a couple of other adults and took our Sunday School boys to the 'dinosaur' park for a couple of hours of 'scootering'. Dinosaur refers to the fact that the slide is in the form of a large dinosaur and boy, do the kids love it. Once upon a time there was also a tearooms decked out like Noah's Ark but that is gone now unfortunately, but there are snake swings and a large whale for climbing over as well as other imaginative climbing stuff and of course the skateboard/scooter/bike course.

We started with a bite of lunch, we bought chips to supplement the lunches the boys had brought with them and we were soon joined by the inevitable gulls on the scavenge. I think they probably got as much of the lunch as the boys ate. Then it was off to the scooter track - oh boy. What fun. Round and round, up hill and down hill, jumps and other stuff that only little boys know how to do.  Challenging each other and doing 'sets' and generally showing off. Real male bonding stuff. It was great seeing them all interacting together.

The youngest two got tired before the others and eventually had us pushing  swings and helping them onto climbing equipment. All in all it was a good afternoon though.

Did I say the girls didn't come? They were going to, they arrived at church with their scooters but in the end opted to go to the 'Party in the park' with their parents and do more girly stuff like face painting and balloon animals and other much more genteel activities. No doubt we'll hear all about it next Sunday.                               

 Wishing you all a wonderful week.