Day 9 - a kiwi christmas

It took us a moment to realise it was Christmas Day, we didn’t feel very Christmassy! Although waking up indoors, on a mattress twice as big as our inflatables AND knowing we didn’t need to walk today did feel like a great Christmas present. Stretching without fear of whacking Josh in the face also felt good.

We had a wonderfully chill morning, played some Hive and Steph rolled up around 10am. We drove the 10 mins to her parents house on the outskirts of Kerikeri - a gorgeous property on 5 acres with horses, sheep & cows all meandering around.

We were introduced to the whole fam, and spent the whole day treated as such. Jace had made it to Kerikeri too so there were four of us hikers stinking out the place. We should have taken the hint at the fourth offer of a shower, but instead we banished ourselves to the outside for most of the day. We were well and truely fed, watered and more - a proper Kiwi Christmas, we felt very lucky to have been invited.

Steph’s Dad runs a charitable trust called Kiwi Coast which is dedicated to the recovery of kiwis across Northland - we can now recognise kiwi calls in the wild… unless Steph’s brother was royally having us on with the type of sounds they make…