Hanmer Springs

We spent the last couple  of days at a place called Hanmer Springs, just North of Christchurch.  We hadn't originally planned to include this on our trip down, but after reading about it on another travel blog (someone doing a similar trip south about 2 weeks ahead of us) we decided to make a slight detour.

We arrived on Tuesday and headed straight for a campsite just outside of the centre for lunch.  The weather has really picked up again and we had a lovely afternoon of sunshine.  We went to a nearby playpark for a while and then headed into town with the boys riding ahead on their bikes. 

On Wednesday we walked into town around 10am and spent most of the day in the Springs pools.   The pools included a childrens area with slides, waterfalls

 and a water gun which entertained the kids for a while.  We then took a dip in the hot pools working our w

ay gradually up from the 33C pool to the hottest 40C pool (and then back down again so that the kids pool didn't feel too cold when we got back).  We had a nice picnic lunch in the sun before some grey clouds started to loom on the horizon.  We decided mid-afternoon to head back to the campsite before any rain arrived (it didn't rain in the end, but it did cloud over and cool down).  

Once the boys were in bed I headed back up to the pools for another hour and enjoyed the pools as they are meant to be enjoyed - in peace! 

Hanmer springs is a lovelly little town nestled amongst between several mountain ranges making for beautiful views in all directions - a really good find which was a surprise because it didn't feature at all in our Rough Guide to New Zealand!

Update on the kids

Peter has started reading some new books which he picked up in a second hand book shop in Kaikoura (where we also traded in some of our well-read books).  The books are childrens fiction based around the SAS - Peter has now decided that he either wants to be in the SAS or be an anthropologist.  If only his mum and dad had their future jobs as sorted - we still don't want to know what to do when we grow up (and we've only got 6 months to finish growing up).

Since his last triathlon Peter and I have been going out for a run every morning - normally about 2 miles in about 21 minutes.  This morning Peter ran a timed mile in 9:21.

When Nicola and I were talking the other day Luke announced loudly that "you talk rubbish mum".  Both his speech and perception are amazing for a two year old.

Joseph has decided that New Zealand isn't very new and should therefore be referred to as just "Zealand" or even "Old Zealand".  This afternoon he finally mastered getting started on his bike (previously he needed a push start from mum or dad every five minutes) much to his, and our, delight.

Photos here (I only just discovered that Facebook photo links expire after a few months, so if you want to look at photos linked from old blog posts you need to either get on Facebook or email and I can refresh the link).

Dave