Bug = 3 years 2 months
Bub = 1 year 4 months 21 days What was Linus up to at this age?
Bud = 18 weeks gestation

Last week Nana had a dental school appointment and I had a meeting, so we decided to take one child each. Nana’s dental appointment wasn’t expected to be more than half an hour, and she felt that Linus would be manageable for that length of time.

It turned out that her appointment was an hour and a half! But our little boy turned out to be an angel, and Nana’s dentist (who had himself suggested that she bring her grandkids in some time) was delighted to have him there, even offering – unnecessarily, as it turned out – to summon his hygienist-girlfriend upstairs to help supervise Linus if it all got a bit much.

As a reward for his good behaviour, he got a toothbrush from the dentist and an ice-cream from Nana!

Bug = dunno
Bub = 1
Bud = still in there

In celebration of two children who don’t need their parents quite so much these days, and another child who will be a lot more demanding in a few months’ time, Bob and I decided that a weekend away without the kids was called for, and Nana was more than happy to oblige with baby-sitting.

We wanted somewhere that we hadn’t spent time before but that wasn’t too far from Dunedin (no more than a couple of hours). We tossed up between Moeraki and the Catlins, and eventually settled – mainly due to the respective responses from accommodation providers in those places – on going to the Catlins, more specifically to Waikawa at the very bottom of the South Island.

We booked to stay in a double room (with ensuite) in a holiday house called The Anchorage, but when we arrived we discovered that – presumably because it was a quiet time of year – we’d been upgraded to the big, two bedroom house upstairs with living area, dining area, full kitchen, fireplace… the works! And on top of that nice surprise, we discovered that tiny Waikawa has a fish ‘n’ chips caravan, so Friday evening’s tea was sorted!

Saturday

On Saturday, after a savoured sleep-in and breakfast on the sunny porch, we drove to nearby Curio Bay, where I was more impressed than I’d expected to be by the petrified forest (which isn’t saying much – I’d expected to be bored out of my brain!).

Next we drove via the back roads to Invercargill. We had a yummy brunch there, followed by a tour of Invercargill Brewery, then bought some food and magazines and drove back to Waikawa via the Southern Scenic Route.

After some relaxing, we decided to return to Curio Bay at dusk on the off-chance of seeing some yellow-eyed penguins. Curio Bay had been ours alone in the morning, but at dusk a lot of other people obviously had the same idea as us! We weren’t disappointed, and were delighted that we got to see 5 yellow-eyed penguins.

On reading about them later, most of the literature – including the Curio Bay website – recommends that people leave the area (at least to the viewing platform) if the penguins come onto the beach. Unfortunately the very informative signs at the site itself don’t mention this, and just stress that you should go no closer than 10m to the penguins… so this is what most of us did (although most people were pretty careful to keep their distance to less than this, not block the penguins’ routes, be still and quiet, etc).

Sunday

On Sunday – thanks to The Anchorage agreeing to a late check-out of 12am – we were able to have another relaxing sleep-in and breakfast, followed by a wander through Waikawa (all 10 minutes of it) to its surprisingly large museum.

After packing, we took a ridiculous number of photos of the accommodation (in case we should ever decide to go back there for a family holiday), then hit the road to head slowly back to Dunedin via every waterfall we could find in the Catlins. We took the pleasant, short forest walks to Niagara (ha ha!) Falls, McLean Falls, Matai (and Horseshoe) Falls, and Purakaunui Falls.

By the early afternoon, I was really looking forward to seeing Linus and Ada again, and spent much of the drive reminding Bob about all the cute things they do and say. When we got home, Linus was delighted to see us both, and Ada… well, she was delighted to see her Daddy, and she’d re-warmed to me before bedtime.