Everything going swimmingly.

I waved goodbye to Jan, Sam, Holly and Charlotte in the tiny nelson airport feeling sad that we wouldn't be seeing them for another couple of months. They are staying in Invercargill until after Easter and will come back to Ireland at the end of April. Mick then made the same 100km journey to pick up his parents in Nelson the following day and they will stay almost next door to us for the next week. They have been in NZ since the start of February treking up glaciers and visiting a few of the same places we've been. Unfortunately we had torrential rain the first day they came which thankfully cleared that evening for Catherine's arrival.
On Friday Emma and Matthew had a school swim competition between the 4 neighbouring schools which Jill, Steven and I went to watch while Mick and Catherine sea kayaked. Matthew and Emma both swam their fastest and Emma won all the races she entered. Matthew's swimming has improved enormously because he's been swimming everyday in school. This is a picture of Matt's friends trying to cheer him up when he was getting bored of watching all the races he wasn't in. Emma getting out of the pool clutching the winner's orange stick.
Because the weather yesterday and today was absolutely scorching much of it has been spent on the beach. Today we went to Tata beach which has beautiful golden sand and turquoise water and spent the day dipping in and out of the sea and lathering on plenty of factor 30.


Hearing that it is -4 and snowing at home just doesn't seem believable and has made Matthew and Emma jealous of the snow they're missing out on all over again. This next photo is of PuPu springs which has the cleanest water in all of NZ.