Happy New Year

We continued our long standing tradition of going to sleep on New Year's eve, and not bothering with the fuss of seeing in the new year. Another reason not to stay up too late was the plan for today, New Year's Day. Through friends from Christchurch, we got to ride to Ponui Island for a picnic with a large group of other day-trippers on a barge. Ponui Island is the large Island just south of Waiheke Island, and is pretty much all farmland and native bush. The barge was an aluminium barge powered by two 200 HP motors, and large enough for a couple of large cars. There were about 50 people going over for the day, and we enjoyed a calm passage to the sheltered beach. On the way, James and I had our first experience of 'Barge Jumping': The barge is slowed, with only one motor going. The front is lowered, and a rope is trailed behind. Then you jump off the front, let the barge float past, and then quickly grab hold of the rope and pull your self up at the back. This is a little trickier than it sounds, as the barge is going fast enough that  holding on to the rope with both hands pushes a large wake up an into your face. I was a little apprehensive about how James would handle it. On my second jump, James and I were going to jump in together, but he hesitated, however, just as I pulled myself up off the rope (but still at the water level) another boy jumped in off the front and James jumped in right afterwards. I leaned my hand out and called to James, he swam towards me and I grabbed his arm and pulled him up behind me. Great fun. We had another couple of jumps, although on James's third jump, we only just managed to grab hold with our fingertips. He had to quickly grab the rope instead, but then the rush of the water made it difficult for him to hold on. I leaned back a bit further and he managed to stretch out a hand, and then I pulled him safely on to the back of the barge. Great fun! (There was a small motor-powered dinghy trailing behind the barge to catch any people who were unfortunate enough to miss getting back on the boat, so it was not quite as dangerous as it sounds). The beautiful sheltered bay was classic New Zealand: steep farmland peppered with native trees leading down to a line of old pohutukawa trees guarding a peaceful sandy beach, with rocky points at each end. We chose a large tree and settled under part of it, along with a few other family groups, and spent the next hours swimming, relaxing, and meeting friendly people. There were some sit-on-top kayaks that were available for general use, and our children took full advantage. At lunchtime we were the envy of the cut-lunch masses (especially those down-wind) when I whipped out my portable gas cooker and cooked up the beef patties that Abigail and I had made a few evenings before (we had made so many, that I had frozen half). It was 6pm by the time the barge had arrived to collect a much more tired bunch for the ride back to the mainland. Once we passed the shelter of Ponui Island, the wind-whipped chop of the waves smashed against the front of the barge sending plumes of spray up and then in to us all on the barge. The kids enjoyed it, with James right up the front watching (and experiencing) it to the fullest. It was almost an hour's ride in the barge, and then about 40 mins in the car back to the house. We are all quite tired now, but have had a lovely, enjoyable day.