A weekend away!

I know we only just got back from Australia, but we both REALLY wanted to get up to Karamea to see the Oparara Arches and caves before the weather got too cold.  Being Mothers Day on the Sunday I thought it would be a great way to 'celebrate' by not buying into all the mum needs this and mum needs that rubbish....and go with my non-buying goals with a weekend road trip!

And it was great! I found and pre-booked a little farm stay place, that prides itself on high percentage of self sustainability.  Not a big farm, just a few veggies, and fruit trees, chickens, ducks and sheep.  Button's highlight i think as always was the chickens, and throwing them scraps from our packed lunch i had made early that morning before we left!

The drive upto the paths to Oparara Arches was pretty hairy, and i am sure glad i wasn't driver, driving rough unsurfaced winding and steep ONE LANE roads having to have full trust that a vehicle coming the other way would be driving as carefully as us and we would both have enough warning to stop and move carefully to the side...and hopefully somewhere there was a side to move to!!!   Once there the area and walk was just lovely! Not to long or hard work, half an hour or so on a nice clear dirt and rock path to follow, with a few steeper inclines and declines on makshift? stairs leading us through dense rainforest, waterfalls, listening to the wonderful sounds of nature.

The Oparara Arch is spectacular! i don't think i have seen anything like it! A massive archway overhead and long open cave with the river running through.   We walked  back a short way before stopping for some afternoon tea, organic banana chips bought at the farm stay's little shop.
A short drive further along and a very short walk to the caves, which were rather cool, but for button and i little too freaky.  we had to use torches to see, and tested the darkness by turning them off.....OOooooo!  "going on a bear hunt....."  Luckily no bears in New Zealand.....we couldn't even find any Wetta's(a strange NZ bug) or cave spiders!

For dinner that night we dinned at Riverstone restaurant!  Superb!  Beautifully cooked and presented meals, lovely service and peaceful surroundings.  Technically you could say that I broke my rule of 'no sweets, unless made with love by me and Button', by ordering the most delicious desert of berries with yoghurt and cream, but in my defence it was for a Mothers Day treat, and in place of the boys purchasing a gift for me!  A sweet, delicious gift of love is much better, and much better enjoyed.

As we ate our desert we sang very quietly a happy birthday to CJ, and blew him kisses.  It was hard not being with him for his birthday, I don't think a moment went by without him being in my thoughts.


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So i am on my first mission!!!  Our home phone seems to be broken, so I need to track down a second hand one. Hopefully tomorrow i will get a chance to pop into the 2nd hand stores here.  Otherwise i have been told there is a 2nd hand/for sale facebook page for our area, so i will post there and see what might become available.  I have to say though if one doesn't turn up quickly we may have to go with buying something...as i think needing to call my family to have contact with CJ and vice-versa is pretty damned important!!  But I promise to do my best this week to track something down, i like the idea of recycling an old phone that is working but someone one got rid of to upgrade.

Button and I did our grocery shop today, we have lots of fun recipes to cook this week for Jamie Oliver's 'Ministry of food' recipe book we borrowed from the library.

Already we have made use of left overs we may have usually thrown out after them sitting unused in the fridge.....one lot of banana piklets yesterday after we arrived back from the weekend away, and today some cheesy vegetable muffins(with pumpkin and green-beans), both very yummy!

And despite my FAVOURITE sweet bakery treat 'lemon and passion fruit curd friands' tbeing on sale as this weeks shop special I resisted!