A couple of weeks ago, we spent a Sunday with friends who were camping beside a river about 30-40 minutes drive from us. It was a beautiful, sunny warm day, just perfect for being outside—although a couple of us got pretty sunburned, because we aren’t used to being in the sun!
The children discovered tadpoles in a boggy spot close to the campsite, so they spent the afternoon hunting. At first, they were finding tiny ones, and then they started finding very large tadpoles. We brought some home, and they took home a large number.
The glimpses we got of the snow-capped Southern Alps were gorgeous!
This is the Haupiri River. If you’ve ever heard of Gloriavale, it is directly between where we were standing here, and the mountain in the background.
My big boys tired of hunting tadpoles and wanted something more exciting to do. They borrowed a rope and used it to lower themselves to a pier of the bridge.
Then, they tied a rock to the rope and used it to measure the depth of the river—till the rock fell off!
Little Miss loves having girls her own size to play with!
The gorse is in bloom everywhere. It’s so pretty—wish it wasn’t such a horrible nuisance!
Here is one of our tadpoles. They are living, quite happily as far as we can see, in a tank of rain water with a log floating in it for when they need to climb out. We’re hoping they live long enough to develop into frogs so we can release them!
