Week 15, Day 3 (Road trip!)

I was abducted today by a cute man in a beard & a bush hat.

It was a blast!

We both had a busy day planned working, but Wayne woke me early and said "Feel like a drive?" How could I refuse. Beautiful calm sunny day, lots of directions to choose from, great company, happy dog.. count me in!

We left home just before 10am (gotta get those jobs done first in case we're late home), and headed off towards the West Coast (otherwise known as the Wet Coast for it's incessant rainfall). Magically, the Coast turned on brilliant sunshine, and only about a hundred sandflies per square inch of skin.. almost perfect conditions.

The Tasman Sea was completely calm with just breakers hitting shore - incoming tide, sandy beaches, damn I wish we had brought some surfcasters & bait!

We went up past my old stomping ground (family bach now belonging to ex - he's done well and it looks a credit to him), and carried on up to a beach I remembered for its heavy load of driftwood. The sea has carried off all the driftwood, revealing iron sands & pretty stones. Tamsin was too nervous to splash in the shallows with me, and headed off to inspect Dad's finds in the stream shoals. No rubies, gold nuggets or greenstone, but some very pretty finds in quartz and jet.

Headed back towards Greymouth, and planned to stop there for lunch. Nope.. not really hungry, so carried on home via Kumara (we came in via Moana).

We stopped to pick rosehips growing wild in the Bailey River basin, and stopped again at the top of Death Corner (top of the viaduct) to be rustled by a Kea. He mugged us for food (we didn't give him any - the signs forbade it), so he tried to make off with Wayne's akubra (bushman's hat) instead. Caught some really cute pix of this :-)

Home bound, we got home just after dark and in time to clear the mail & messages. Nearly 600 k's round trip, dog is exhausted, humans are pretty knackered too, but what a marvelous day.

Excuse me.. dinner's ready and the armchair & knitting beckon. Good thing work wasn't going anywhere and will still be there tomorrow (sighhhhhh).

How was your weekend?