Easter holidays & 82nd birthday parties

Easter won't be as early as it was this year for over a hundred years apparently. So whilst that made it cold in the UK with snow on the beach near where Lizzy's parents live in Norfolk, it meant a final chance for summer here before autumn really begins.

It's been great to have Easter holidays with my parents and we had a full and relaxing holiday:

On Good Friday we headed to Hanmer for a dip in the hot pools. Here's Mum & Dad Hodge, with me eating lunch by the river in Hanmer.

After lunch we continued, over the Lewis Pass, towards Motueka and onto Little Kaiteriteri where we'd booked a motel. It's a long drive, and took most of the day.

On the Saturday we took the twisty drive over Takaka Hill to Golden Bay, meeting up with the wider family to celebrate Aunt Maureen's 82nd birthday party. They'd hired two simple baches on a river estuary near the mouth. A beautiful peaceful spot, shown here when the tide was out.

However as we arrived, everyone was ashen. Vicky had gone out kayaking 2 1/2 hours before and hadn't returned and now the tide was going out. Vicky's brother Mike and his partner Nicki are keen kayakers going away for days at a time, but Vicky had only been kayaking once before, for five minutes, 15 years ago! When we arrived Vicky's sister Pip was liaising with the police and they were about to get a plane up in the air to look for her. Eventually though, a speck appeared on the horizon and Richard, Vicky's brother-in-law went out in the wee boat to meet whoever it was. Thankfully, it was Vicky, and the plane search was called off. Vicky is great but she seems to have ended up being the one to whom, if anything could possibly go wrong, it will! She said 'I went past this river mouth five times and couldn't see the baches'. All's well though - the nice policeman started writing his report...

... and then it was time for some kai.
Obviously, included in lunch was Aunt Maureen's birthday cake, looking fine and tasting even better.

After lunch cricket was the order of the day with stumps constructed of drift wood. Play was, naturally, of a high standard. Aunt Maureen did some fine batting. And Roy and Jimmy were the best bowlers, which isn't surprising given they both play for their school team.

After cricket was cockle picking on the mud flats and then eating the fruits of our labours - good times.

All in all, a great day (once we knew Vicky was safe).

Sunday was Easter Day, and we joined a local church in Motueka. It was a bit of a shocker really. Some parts were good, but others were fuzzy at best and heretical at worst:

• 'We shouldn't celebrate Easter, it's just a pagan festival' - well, maybe, but we should celebrate Jesus death and resurrection, and often.
• 'There is no assurance of salvation, and we should all live in fear of going to hell' - um, what about lots of verses, including Hebrews 10:22 ...let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith..... ?
• Looking at the scroll and seals in Revelation 5, where 'no-one was worthy to open the scroll' as Revelation says, we were told 'and that includes God the Father - only Jesus was worthy to open the scroll' - um, really? God the Father not worthy? How does that work? Was that just a throw-away line?
• In order to avoid going to hell we 'should all try very hard not to take drugs, get drunk, watch too much TV or annoy our parents' - er OK, or we could try believing in Jesus?
  

Grrrrr! It left us feeling sad at the lack of discernment in that church. Fairly typical NZ church Lizzy & I reckon.

The rest of Easter Day was on the beach at Little Kaiteriteri. And what a beach! Here it is first thing on Easter Monday

And here's Lizzy & Dad in familiar pose - Liz not swimming, and Dad always swimming.

We went for a walk around the headland to see more stunning beaches, and more and more housing development (didn't take too many pictures of houses!)

Then on Monday it was time to head home. Mum & Dad were taking our car and having a bit of a tiki tour, whilst Lizzy & I flew home to Canterbury. As we didn't have that long drive home, we spent the day in Nelson. Here's Dad & Lizzy near the top of the hill that is the Centre of NZ - 705km to the north North Island coast, 705 km to the south South Island coast and nearly a 100km to headlands in east and west too. Lizzy wasn't too impressed with the numbers, but as a geographer, I love that sort of thing. (She enjoyed the walk though).

All too soon we were at the airport. Here's Nelson city soon after taking off. Looks good on a sunny day eh?
And then home. I love planes, and the smaller the better. Here's the Q300 workhorse ferrying passengers between Nelson and Christchurch.

So - we had a great few days holiday, although it did feel odd with Easter so close to the beginning of the academic year. Some of my colleagues were working at student Easter camps throughout New Zealand and even in Papua New Guinea, so I look forward to hearing their stories soon.