The Smiths go Camping!

Hey folks. I know it's been a while since I've posted on here, but our lives have been a bit hectic over the last 2 months! We are back in our normal routines now so hopefully I can get more consistent showing you at home about our lives! 

I was so excited to go camping this weekend for my first official time. I don’t count sleeping in a tent in yards or campgrounds in Okoboji where we can go to Taco House for dinner and grandma’s for breakfast as real camping J.  

This is how I felt about camping before moving to NZ

However, when I learned that in New Zealand there are very few places that allow campfires, my excitement waned. I was very interested in how much fun camping would be without the fire. Well luckily we had Ranger Bruffy organizing everything, so we still managed to have a great time!

We  started our trip with a hike at the Mangawhai heads. We love it when we find new places we’d never been to that are amazing, and this was definitely one of them. The hike started along the beach, then took us up up up into the cliffs where we meandered around for an hour or so until making our descent back to sea level. The walk along the beach at the end was so enjoyable. I felt like a kid again, playing in the rock formations and jumping from rock to rock to get across. We collected shells and even though Will put a 5 shell sanction on me, I managed to sneak away 8 J. After the hike we made our way to our camp site.

Getting pumped up to climb!

The whole group in the hole! 

The beach we camped on is called Uretiti. Now, some childish people would laugh when saying that name aloud, but I know you would never… It was such an amazing beach, we decided to get in kamakazi style- which is to say run as fast as you can, submerge yourself, then run out. Unfortunately it was a very shallow beach, so we had to run quite a ways until we were able to go under. It was VERY cold, but getting in the sea always invigorates me!

Dinner was catered by Chef Talena and Sou Chef William and featured grilled sausages, rosemary kumara and green millet salad. I hate to toot my own horn here, but there were several (ok, maybe one) comments about how nice the flavors balanced out. Dessert was s’more cookies since we couldn’t have real s’mores (but they were pretty darn good).

Our 5-star set up

A friendly game of how many times can you clap before catching the football

It was such an amazing night with a beautiful yellow moon. It was so bright, I remember waking up at midnight and started getting up until Will set me straight. I thought it was daylight! I need to figure out some better sleeping configurations, but all in all, camping was a success and we will be doing this more often!!