Christmas Day in Marlborough dawned bright and sunny. And Hot. Super Hot. Thank goodness we were spending it at Liz and Steve's Bach in Onahau Bay in the Marlborough Sounds. The best place one can ever spend Christmas!
We duly arrived at the public jetty by 9.15am and shortly after we spied a fast boat travelling our way.
Seemed to take ages to get her though as once around the corner, the speed limit was very slow right up to the wharf..
Oh no - she spied the camera! Looks similar a scene from out of the Titanic.. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that the Titanic sunk. Thank goodness it's too hot for icebergs today!
We loaded up the boat with all our gear - we were weighed down with Christmas presents, booze, cherries, berries, salads, togs, towels, and sunblock. We left the kitchen sink behind though! And then we left Picton behind...
On the way to the bay, we came across this sight, so Steve detoured our boat to have a closer look...
Oh a Costa Cruise. Visiting the Marlborough Sounds! The water was incredible, flat, clam, and the usual beautiful colour of the area.
You'll have to excuse me but I took a few photos of the boat because it was such an imposing sight!
And I wasn't sure of it's best side.. We took lots of photographs and waved to the tourists, and I mused that we will probably end up on their blogs! As we were leaving, the Cruiseship was turning and then it was heading out of the sounds to its next destination..
We arrived at the bach to freshly made breakfast of hot croissants, Ham, cheese, tomato, and beautiful fresh fruit and yoghurt. Absolutely delicious. It was already 28C, so we decided to do the Christmas Presents while it was still 'cool'. For just eight people, there were a heck of a lot of presents under the tree...
And so after all that hard work of shopping, choosing, wrapping and importing them to the bach, the enjoyment of opening started. Louise and Jeremy getting into the swing of things...
Mum enjoying the book I gave her full of images of her Grandaughter, Anne.
Steve concentrating hard. I think he was trying to guess what was in there before he opened it. He was Santa Claus, but I'm still pondering the 'try me' on his hat. I didn't take up the offer though!
Liz looking excited about her pressie...
And Alex is hidden by the enormity of his present, and is totally hiding Amanda at the back there!
Oh - and this is our view. Beautiful NZ bush with flowering Pohutakawa and blue blue sea and sky. I heard it was raining in Auckland and north. Shame!
While we were relaxing another cruise ship ambled by..
Jeremy and Louise took off to find out what one it was, but it's very unusual to see them go past this bay, as it gets quite shallow. We wondered if the ship would run aground and we would end up with more people for Christmas dinner!
Late in the afternoon we went back up to the bach, made the salads, prepared the whitebait fritters, drank some more champagne, and looked at the view...
This was our view at the table...
We were dropped back to Picton about 8pm and the moon was in the sky already.
We arrived home to summer heat. My outside temperature guage read 36C at 8.30pm, inside was 38C! We opened all the doors and windows but decieed it was still too hot, so we shut everything up and put the aircon on to cool us down.
I gave my poor abandoned puss a can of tuna for dinner - her Christmas special so all is forgiven for leaving her all day already!
At 10pm it was still 27C outside, and midnight still 25C. Pretty warm.
We also skyped Anne for several hours and thoroughly enjoyed catching up with her and Jori. Anne opened all her presents with us while we were on skype so that was really fun. She also gave us a tour of her apartment. I can't wait to get there! 111 days to go!
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