Dear Amy and Nick

Thank you very much for buying us the Wanganui Canoe Trip for our wedding gift. This blog is dedicated to you although, after reading it, you are more than welcome to reject it if you want.

As I mentioned in the last blog when we picked up our hire car, Sunny, she came with a free 'Famous Five Go On An Adventure' CD. We haven't listened to it yet. Like the potatoes in a roast dinner, the present from your rich Auntie at Christmas or the Scampi'N'Fries flavoured NicNacs in a family sized multipack of NicNacs, we are saving it until last. But, like all those things, it is always on our mind, therefore….

THE FAMOUS THREE GO ON A ROAD TRIP

The summer holidays were here again and Donna and Jim were looking forward to their road trip to Tamunamui.

'It will be super duper fun' said Donna

'I can't wait', said Jim, 'We can have lashings of wine and heaps of banana sandwiches'.

And so they set off with their car, Sunny, on what Google Maps optimistically predicted was a four and a half hour journey. Ten and a half hours after leaving Wellington, Donna and Jim finally arrived at the canoe lodge.

Well done Sunny, you super car!

But, seriously Google Maps, have you actually ever driven on New Zealand roads? Just because it says the speed limit is 100km/h doesn't mean we can actually do anything like that speed what with all the tractors and hairpin bends and generally taking it slow to admire the scenery. And that doesn't even take into account the compulsory need for Donna, Jim and Sunny to stop at least once every half an hour for toilet breaks, cigarette breaks, driver swop breaks, breaks because Sunny is feeling a bit tired, photo opportunity breaks or just plain simple breaks.

And that is not even taken into account the proper breaks. Donna insisted on a McDonald's. Jim insisted on going shopping at the outlet store (I know you think that should be the other way around), we needed to buy all our food and we had to stop for lunch to meet up with Jess and Ness, two sisters with brilliantly rhyming names.

I am not a walking thesaurus and I only know three words to describe beautiful: beautiful, lovely and very nice. Over the course of the next 2 months we are going to do lots of driving in New Zealand and, I suspect that most of those journeys will be beautiful, so I apologise now for my lack of creativity in describing it.

The scenery was very nice (I warned you).

Apparently the bit north of Wanganui town was the most beautiful bit but I missed it because I was asleep at that point, only waking up in time to see the lovely, snowcapped mountain; Tongariro rising up above the green toy hills all around.

Anyway, back to the Famous Three and a new adventure

THE FAMOUS THREE AND THE ABORTED CANOE TRIP

Once upon a time there were two honeymooners and their car and they were meant to go on a canoe trip and...Well look, anyone who has read any of these blogs so far will know that there is only about a 50-50 chance that we will do any activity that we were meant to do and that whatever we did instead probably involved less activity, more sitting around and possibly more drinking wine so rather than drag it out here are the reasons why we didn't go canoeing:

*There was a 50% chance that we would capsize. If anyone has ever been anywhere near Donna anywhere near water, you will know quite how much she enjoys the idea of having her head under water

*If we capsized, there was a chance our canoe might disappear off down the river without us leaving us marooned overnight by the side of the river

*The river was very high because of the recent rains

*There was no one else on the river to help us out if we got into trouble

And the reasons why we chose to not do it

*The room we were staying in at the canoe hire lodge was a very nice self contained little cabin on a bluff overlooking the river. I am currently writing this blog sat on our veranda, watching the sunset with a glass of wine. The room also has the most comfortable bed we have been in since Bali and blackout curtains. The further we travel on this honeymoon, the further away from the equator we are getting and the earlier the sun is rising. Do you know quite how good it is for your room to still be dark at any time of the day you want?

*We got to go to a lavender farm instead. Okay, so that might not be the best of reasons and possibly it was more that we didn't have anything to do once we had got up but it was still beautiful sitting there admiring the scenario with a beer while Donna wandered off to take a couple of hundred of photos of bees pollinating the lavender (I bet you cannot wait for that Facebook album).

*The family who run the canoe company/lodge are really friendly in slightly crazy way. For a start, there are hundreds of them, not literally but I am sure I have counted at least seven or eight different children all helping out at one stage or other. When we turned up, the parents had been away so the children were all trying to tidy up the house because it was the mum's birthday so you can imagine a bunch of teenage kids trying to clean up lots of toys, shouting at each other and trying to professionally check us in. They also have a diverse collection of animals. There is a small poodle with the most wiry fur ever, two goats being kept in the chicken pen, one cat, three kittens (very cute) even though no one in the family like cats, two chickens roaming around the carpark, one white chicken living under our veranda on a load of eggs (they had previously thought she was dead so were quite pleased when we discovered it) and one (just about alive) baby turkey. There were previously two but…and so to the last story of the day….

THE FAMOUS THREE AND THE DYING CHICKENY THING MYSTERY

Donna and Jim and their car Sunny were happily spending a day in the countryside at the canoe hire lodge.

'Let's have a barbeque tonight,' said Jim

'Yes, let's!' said Donna, 'it will be such splendid fun. You go and get the barbeque started and I will butter the bread.'

So Jim went out to put the barbeque on but came back very shortly.

'Did you put it on?' asked Donna

'No,' said Jim, 'I think you should come out and see this.'

So the Famous Three went outside (Sunny just sat there doing nothing at this point) and saw quite a sight. Next to the barbeque was some sort of cage contraption with what looked like some sort of almost dead chickeny animal inside. It was slowly bobbing its head in a dying sort of way.

'What is it?' asked Donna

'Some sort of chicken?' offered Jim

'Do you think it is meant to be there?' asked Donna

'These people are country folk so possibly that's how they kill chickeny things' said Jim

'It doesn't look like the most humane way to kill a chicken' said Donna

'No,' said Jim, 'it does look rather cruel to drag it out like that'

'Should we go and tell them?' asked Donna

'Probably' said Jim,' although we might look a bit stupid if it is meant to be like that. We don't really know what these strange country folk do.'

Quickly into action, the Famous Three (Sunny was still sat there doing nothing) went and asked at reception if there was meant to be a dying chicken thing next to the barbecue, but not straight away because the person on reception was on the phone for ages and Donna and Jim were far to British polite to interrupt, even for the life of a dying chickeny thing. The response that they got when they finally told the girl on reception:

'f***'

implied that this wasn't a normal activity that strange country folk do. Apparently, the strange chickeny thing that the Famous Three had seen was actually two baby pet turkeys, one of which had been squashed when the cage they were being kept in had collapsed when a canoe fell on it. The other one was just barely alive.

Well done Famous Three! (Sunny still did b*****all) Another mystery solved!

Their good deeds didn't stop at sort of almost saving 50% of the baby turkey population of the canoe hire lodge. Oh no. Donna was asked to hold the still-abit-alive baby turkey.

'I really didn't want to touch it', said Donna afterwards, 'It smelt horrible.'

Jim was left to entertain David, distracting him by playing catch with an old soft drinks bottle while trying to avoid standing on the dead baby turkey on the floor and keeping the kittens away from eating said dead turkey until someone with a lot more ability at knowing how to deal with dead turkey situations could come along and dispose of it and Jim could go back to barbecuing their (luckily vegetarian) sausages.

The sausages turned out to be fabulous so everything turned out well in the end.

NB David is the the family's overexcited, hyperactive seven year old boy. I just asked Donna how best to describe him and she said: just point out how he always has s*** all over his face, snot running out of his nose and always tries to hug me.

So there you have it. I have managed to write another very long blog about nothing really in particular.

All our love

Jim and Donna

INTERESTING KIWI FACT OF THE DAY

New Zealand is famous for having lots of sheep. At its peak in the 1970s, there were over 40 million sheep. That is over 10 sheep per person. Unfortunately, since then, the profitability of cattle farming has since a sharp decrease in the number of sheep in favour of big cows. This is a shame because cows don't run away en mass in a comedy fashion when you beep your horn at them.