Waitangi Day and stuff...

The last couple of weeks have been fairly busy. I got my wish and saw Ghostbusters on the big screen outdoors at Silo park. This time it was a much warmer night and we were well prepared with jumpers and blankets. It was cool to see such a classic film from our childhood on a big screen. Like last time the atmosphere was great with everybody singing along to the theme tune and quoting many famous lines.

On the weekend we took at walk from Okura (about 20 mins north of us) along the track to Stillwater. We stopped on a nice beach for lunch. There is also an old cottage from the 1850s which has been preserved. We found a rope swing from a tree, I don't think its from 1850. It was a very hilly route made more tiring by our decision to run the uphill sections.

Say hello to my little friend

Hanging out

Me too

Path to the beach

Not sure how this tree grew like this

Taking in the view

Squirt shoes before and after to kill disease which affects the trees

Last Wednesday was a public holiday celebrating the signing of the treaty of Waitangi. This was when in 1840 the British and the Maori people agreed governance and land ownership rules. We went to Bethell's Beach with Hanna to explore some of the tracks around the bays. It was a perfectly sunny day, after 2 days of rain it was a relief as we thought summer was over! The tracks head up the coastline and give amazing views of the beach and beyond.

Bethell's Beach from the cliffs

Bethell's Beach

We ended up stopping at O'Neills bay, walking all the way to one end where there were a load of rock pools. After spotting jelly fish and mad looking starfish we found some mussels which were a decent size. Our walk then turned into a mussel mission, we might have gone bit mad collecting 2 big bags full. Only then we realised that we were quite far from the car and had no way of keeping them cool, a real problem on such a hot day. Back in the car we found a shop and Hanna fashioned a cool box with bin bags some ice and a cardboard box. Turned out this worked really well.

Never seen a starfish like this

Baby mussels on a rock

Stranded!

Hanna was proud of her pink spade - she had to give it back to the child who lost it

More stranded

The haul

After some lunch in a cafe made from railway carriages we headed to Muriwai beach for some relaxing.  Turns out we found the busiest beach we've seen in our time here. Still plenty of room though, nothing compared to a UK beach on a hot bank holiday. Muriwai is a black sand beach and we are still finding sand in our ears, this isn't 'cos we haven't washed. Once we'd had enough of the beach we headed back to Hanna's for the mussel feast.

A sandy feast - at least the beers were cold

We cooked up the mussels in lots of garlic and onion, the looked and smelt amazing. Turns out they were very sandy even after a long soak in fresh water before we cooked them. Like the true Brits we are were determined to enjoy them, so we battled on with them for a while, but it was lost cause. Fresh mussel lesson number one; soak them for ages!