Till next time, Pouto

Baches gather at the end of the road

Who doesn't like watching happy children? Has to be one of life's great joys I reckon.

Our lot of kids plus their cousins and friend joined three other laughing, happy water babies on the beach closest to the bach on Sunday morning. They spent a few hours dipping and digging. Danny and Joe (the only boy amongst all those girls) went for a walk along the beach intent on dragging a log we could see from the water close to shore. A few minutes later Joe came running full tilt back along the beach to spread the word it wasn't a log but a seal. Mass exodus from our spot on the beach!

Watching the antics of the seal

Around that time an old, old friend came along the beach in his dune buggy. He offered to take me for a ride and, knowing from days of old, that he was a responsible type I leapt at the chance. Responsible yes but still fun loving, definitely. I'm so disappointed no one got a photo of us whizzing up and down sand dunes. My niece's daughter had told me how Jock now takes tourists who find their way to Pouto for rides around to the lighthouse and the louder they scream, the faster he goes. No screaming from me but plenty of shrieks of delight. Oh, it's so good to feel young again with the wind in my hair (and to survive a pounding hearbeat)!

Returned from doing the wild thing with Jock.

After much pleading from the kids he agreed to let them all pile into the back and take them for a little ride. He set out very sedately but we suspect that he livened things up a bit once he was out of sight of the parents.

More beach action. We heard them coming, must have been 10 or so people of varying sizes on bikes of varying sizes (including one little person, in a little helmet (so cute!) in a back pack securely attached to its mother), they erupted on to the beach and headed off up the coast. A local family of several generations on a Sunday outing.

Saturday afternoon my niece's husband offered to show us around the old family farm, now split up among different family members. Thank you, Andrew. It was terrific to drive over those hills again and the stock looked wonderful, glossy coats and well fattened. Where sund dunes once stood on the far side of the lake there are now acres of pine trees which changed the aspect a bit but they are there for a purpose (to consolidate the sand) and if they help to save this glorious peninsula I'm all for them.

Joe, Bill and Danny (with Andrew obscured) inspecting the lake at the back of the farm.

Danny and Leone remembered how we once had a Christmas picnic lunch with family on the shores of this lake.

Pouto is a place of extremes and contrasts with the wild Tasman Sea pounding its beach yet in harmony with the stillness and silence of the lakes and bush. It's constantly resurrecting itself with its seemingly endless mobile sand dunes. In all its moods I love the place.