Joyful Maiden: Nelson Trip, part 3

Well, I finally got all the rest of the posts from our Nelson trip back in May ready to go! Perhaps now I can get them all posted before Grandma comes and we take a lot more pictures! I’m sorry this has taken so long—guess I kept getting sidetracked. Here we go with part three. (Here are the links to Part 1 and Part 2.)

After being on the beach for a while, most of us children went to the flying fox while we waited for lunch. Several people tried it out—I didn’t, I prefer taking pictures.

Little brother with his wonderful helper and playmate!

Then, they took him on a ride…he thought it was so much fun!

Lunchtime came. As soon as prayer was over, all the children dove in, made a sandwich, and then took off running for the island. All the sand in this picture is covered with water at high tide.

Who can get there first? (By the way, the boy and the girl in front are the leaders of their siblings in our respective families….)

After walking (well, I walked) to the island, we then went across the sand again to a bridge, went under it and through this water to get to the other side of the road. There, everyone started a Fox and Goose game in the sand.

I think they had more fun making trails than playing the actual game!

After everyone was tired of playing the game, they decided to dig a well.

Water!

Soon after they hit water, it was time to head back. We then went to Split Apple Rock.

The youngest of our friend’s family. I love how the picture turned out!

Waiting to start down the trail.

At the bottom of the trail. The rock is so neat! It reminds me of the verse in the Bible that talks about the Mount of Olives being split cleanly into two parts.

A little stream of water came down the hill, and flowed out into the sea. The black sand—or metal, or whatever it was—was fascinating to look at.

A helicopter flew over.

To the left of Split Apple Rock, there were a series of caves carved into the rock. We found a lot more of the black sand in there. The boys said the black sand was a lot heavier than the yellow.

We didn’t have any lights with us to explore the caves, so a brother went back with me to the van to get some headlamps. I left my camera with Mom, so I could move faster. While we were gone, a Tui sang for the others. Sadly, it was gone by the time we got back.

Another view of the rock.

The other side of the bay.

Our wonderful hosts.

In the caves again, with lights! We were all very excited when someone spotted two penguins way back in a crevice.

The black sand, or metal, or whatever it was was amazing to see in such big drifts! The right picture has another penguin in it, I believe—you can’t see it very well, though. I know we did find two different places where there were penguins, and there were around four birds all together.

Back out in the sunshine again. While we were gone, a “Coffee ’N’ Cruise” touring boat had come into the bay. When someone started shouting to us from the boat, we all tried to make out what they were saying. But we couldn’t understand at all, so we shrugged it off. After looking closer, however, we found out they were some friends who live around two hours south of us! It was pretty funny that we had to go around four hours north to get to see them.

I moved along the beach to get a few pictures, and it was pretty neat to look back and see that everyone was standing in the last bit of sunshine on the beach for the day. The hill behind the bay is very high, so the beach loses it’s sunshine early.

Baby brother was put in the backpack for the climb back up to the van.