9th January 2011

Today we went down to Foxton Beach again for the morning so Emma could have a swim but I stayed in the sun tent as my face is all sunburnt from yesterday :o( I put factor 50 everywhere but forgot my face!! My shoulders have caught the sun a bit but it's fine.

After a lunch of 2 egg and bacon sandwiches lovingly made by Liz, we headed off to a town called Shannon which is about 16km from Foxton. It's a lovely little town and we wandered around the shops for a bit and found an antique shop where I bought a necklace shaped like a sparkly key.

We then drove up the road to a place called Owlcatraz, which is a bird sanctuary that also has a man-made glowworm cave. We went on a guided tour with a nice man called Don, who's Scottish and moved here in 1981 but still sounds like a broad scotsman. We saw all different types of birds that are native to NZ and went into an owl house too. It was just me and Tina and he took us to see the farm animals that they had including a Kune pig, ostriches, deer, alpacas and a Jerusalem donkey - so called because it has a cross shape on its back.

On the way back to the main building, Tina spotted what she thought was a dead bird in the bush so bent down to look at it when it twitched. It was lying on its side with its head under a pile of leaves and it couldn't move. Don picked it up and it was cheeping so we took it back with us and he's going to look after it. He truly loves his job and it shows. UNfortunately the glowworm cave was closed but there is a natural one in Waitomo (not sure if that's spelt right) so I could visit that instead.

Now we are back at Liz's house and I am showered and washed and covered in aloe vera. We are going in the spa later :o)

Did you know that deer can jump 1.8m from standing?

Miss you all

x