Friends!

Our very good friends Andy and Vicky moved out here last weekend and it is so exciting to have people around who know us and know about us and we don’t have to expend any energy at all explaining things or going back over the past. Hurray!

So we went to visit them on Saturday and had a great time.
They are living in a crazy 70’s style apartment out in the suburbs where they have lots of space and a huge garden.

We drove around the town and found the public beach, which is fine but is basically just off a huge car park and no doubt gets very busy.

Then we went for lunch at a really nice place called the Mill Pond which looks out over a beautiful lake. However the 32 degree heat and lack of any breeze made it slightly hard to enjoy the sun and we had to move back into the shade pretty quickly.
Lots of beer helped cool us down, before we went into town to go to the supermarket and somehow Vicky and I ended up getting spray tans!

I can blame this on the beer, but she was our designated driver so has absolutely no excuse. We looked utterly ridiculous when we came out, dripping with sweat and brown gunk, and then found out we couldn’t shower for 4 hours which meant we had to move our dinner reservation from 8.30 to 10pm!

We went back to a bar to meet the boys and cool down again, it really was a question of whizzing from one airconditioned space to another, and then headed to the supermarket for snacks. Which is also a silly thing to do under the influence and we bought a huge box of cookies and another of cupcakes and some bag clips which were apparently very exciting and I got a Princess necklace that lights up!

Back at home we sat on their lovely porch enjoying the wildlife, a little frog even fell out of a tree.

A shower sadly did little to improve the tan, I have insanely orange hands and feet and a weird brown patch on one elbow. But this was my first time so I was unprepared, next time we’ll do better.
Obviously there will be a next time, as it only cost £18 so who cares?!

We went to Honu for dinner, and the food was excellent, but we hadn’t realized it was all sharing platters so all came as and when it was ready. It was also great value, $200 for four of us to eat and have 2 bottles of wine, and at the end they gave us warm cookies!
Finally got to bed at about 1.30, hoping for a good lie in.

Sadly, blinds were not included in A & V’s rental agreement, so by 8.30 we were all up and about because of the blazing sunshine.
After breakfast we headed out to the nature reserve for a walk, it was really beautiful and rugged, with one huge brackish pond in the middle of the forest.
At the end there was also a beach, but it too was of the rugged variety rather than the sunbathing variety.
It was a bit too hot for walking about really, but we saw lots of little chipmonks who were so cute they made up for it.

Then we hopped over to the public beach to get an icecream and on the way found the residents only beach! A & V just have to pay $30 to join for the year and its lovely.
There is a huge picnic lawn, barbeques, tables and benches, tennis courts, playground, loo, shower, changing room and of course…beach. A lovely large sandy beach.

Heaven. We’ll be back soon!