Aroha Cottage

We arrived in Aroha cottage, Kina Beach on a hot, sunny day and instantly loved the place. Kina is the Maori word for sea urchin and the beach, which is about 100m from the gate of the cottage, is covered with urchin shells.
Kina Beach is about 25kms from Nelson which is at the north of the south island and about 60km from where we will spend the last 6 weeks of our trip. The cottage itself is lovely and has a big garden with a trampoline which has been great fun for Matt and Emma.

It also has a large deck and barbeque where we've been eating all our meals. The cottage itself is sweet but can get very hot at night. We've been leaving windows open which then leads to mosquitos and sand flies using us for a midnight snack and we arrive into the kitchen in the mornings comparing new bites. The day after we arrived Mick came back from a run to tell us that a dead whale had been washed up on the beach so we all went down to get a look before it was buried.
At Christmas a pod of about 120 pilot whales had beached in Golden Bay, about 60km away, and the Department of Conservation (who were on the beach to do the burial) told us that it was probably one of that pod who hadn't washed up with the others but had been floating about in the sea since then. A few other sea creatures had taken bites out of it including octopus and shark and the size of the shark bite marks on its tail were enough to make me think twice about going for a swim out too far here.
Catherine arrived over for the weekend to spend her birthday here and on the day of her birthday the weather was beautiful so we travelled a short way up the coast to Kaiteriteri where there is a long beach with lovely golden sand where we spent the day lolling about in the sea. While she was here we also visited a local vineyard for some wine tasting and very nice lunch in the sun and also travelled a few kms south and fished off the wharf in Mapua where Mick caught an almost dead spotty that he threw it back in where it floated on its back out to sea. There was a small aquarium at the harbour where you were allowed to touch whatever you could reach. Matt and Emma (who is terrified of the tiniest spider) were stroking giant biting eels, starfish, stingray and some of the slower moving fish.
Yesterday as we were leaving Catherine back to the airport in Nelson I took Matt for a haircut to tidy him up before school next week. It's strange to be able to see his face again but he likes it which is good because we had such a fight to get him to agree to it. We have another week here before we drive over Takaka hill to our house in Clifton and the day afer we arrive Matt and Emma are due to start school which they are both nervous and excited about. I have finished all of the curriculam that was set from Ireland with them which hasn't always been easy. I don't know how teachers manage to teach an entire class when it's such a struggle to get anything done with just two.
This last picture is one of them at school outside the cottage.
I have used up all my monthly MB allowance on my simcard (which is how I generally log on) so for the next few days I will only be able to log on at the library.