The Big Trip | Wednesday, 23 February, 2005

On Wednesday, Kacie's parents Bill and Debbie joined the holiday at Hahei. This was apparently the signal for some serious touristing, as a days-long excursion to Rotatua and Lake Taupo was to begin. However, there was one teeny little problem:

We got a call from the airport at about 8:00 am from them saying that they were being delayed in customs because their luggage had not arrived. They had a tight connection from Austin to Lax. Their flight out of Austin had been delayed 1 1/2 hours due to mechanical problems so they only had 1/2 and hour to get to Air New Zealand in the International terminal.

Ah, the joys of air travel. To spare you the suspense, the luggage was delivered by the airline to the Hahei bach the next day...after everyone had left for their multi-day excursion. Lesson? Always put undies, medications and reading glasses in your carry-on. Alternately (and I like this one), stay home. That first day in Hahei was nonetheless a lot of fun:

We had great fun at the beach. I spent a lot of time in the sea with Elizabeth laying on a boogie board. She would just float over the wave swells because we were out deep enough that the waves weren't breakers yet. She went back to the estuary after a while. I got her to ride a wave on the boogie board on the last wave in. She really liked it until a second wave that she wasn't expecting caught her in the face. I even went in on a wave myself. It was kind of fun but my dismount was very undignified: Picture me with feet in the air, tumbling in about 2 inches of water. But laughing.

After that we went over to the estuary. Dad and Derek had dug an outlet so we all played for an hour or so digging it out more. It really needed to be drained - it was really getting yucky looking and smelling. It wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have to walk in it or the kids weren't swimming in it. It must have worked because when we looked out the window the next morning the estuary was drained back down to the size of the first picture I sent you. There was a lot of wave action at night too because I could really hear the surf that night as well.

Later Dawn said that normally the town council has to order a backhoe out a few times a year to drain the estuary, but thanks to the Janke's can-do American spirit, they can skip at least one such dig-out this year.

We came back from the beach rather late. Dinner was later because we did a huge amount of schnitzel - more than twice as much as we needed. Mom wanted it all done though so we could freeze what we didn't eat. The cabbage turned out very well, in fact everything was good.

After dinner everyone watched the last episode of The 4400. I decided not to because Dad had set a 7:30 am departure time and I did not want to be the one to hold him up. So I got everything I could think of packed up and Elizabeth and I had an early bedtime. Emily came in some time later and I heard her go to bed.