The cool weather and wind made for a bug free night. We all slept well and slept hard!

With a goal to be on the road by 10 am, Andy wrestled with the kids while Laurie cleaned up and washed dishes. It is in moments like this that we play to our strengths – Andy is present and fills the kids’ buckets while Laurie gets things done.

Miles turned the key to start the engine at 10:10am – not too shabby. Laurie had assumed that the b&b came around the campsite to collect camping fees in the evening but that wasn’t so.

We stopped at the front and Andy went to pay while Miles pretended to drive. He loves to steer, give the engine some revs, turn on the blinkers and headlights and honk the horn. Usually Andy allows him to do most of those things except honk the horn and high beam others.

Andy returned to the van to find the kids already asking to watch cartoons but we distracted them by giving them sticker books and strawberries.

Today was going to be our longest driving day yet with just over 4 hours to our next destination. Andy had mapped out some potential stops to allow us to stretch our legs if needed.

Usually when we make too many stops though, the drive feels like it takes much, much longer. Today we just took it kilometer by kilometer and let the drive unfold.

The road hugged the beautiful coastline for about 30 minutes. We drove through 3 narrow tunnels and spotted many seals. Laurie even thought she saw a penguin. We’re not sure if it was one or not but Ani was falling asleep so we elected to keep going.

The road turned inland and got very twisty for the first 20 minutes as we drove up and over a pass. This stretch of State Highway 1 is called the Alpine Pacific Touring Route and is very picturesque.

Eventually we turned off of State Highway 1 and on to flat roads through farmlands. The rest of the drive was rather uneventful, except for when we passed slow moving tractors.

Ani took a lovely 2 hour nap and Miles was entertained by sticker books, coloring and listening to music.

With 1 hour to go we stopped at a playground to stretch our legs. We are pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness of the parks and playgrounds in New Zealand. It’s quite lovely and reminds us of the parks in Idaho.

Ani drove a “taxi” while Miles offered rides to the apple orchard on the tractor. We love seeing their imaginations at work. Jokingly Andy says he’s always glad to see they still have imagination after watching cartoons on the drives because when they are watching they look like completely immersed zombies.

Around 3:30pm we arrived at the Geraldine Top 10 Holiday park, our home for the night. We choose this spot to have access to laundry.

Interesting how we got to camp earliest on our longest driving day. Just goes to show that stops really do add up!

We also wanted to get there before 4pm as we were told there was a Christmas parade that evening and we would encounter road closures if we got there after 4pm.

The price difference of a non powered site (often called a tent site in these types of holiday parks) and a powered site was only $5. Andy figured most people with campervans would elect the powered sites. He assumed that if we chose a non powered site it would be less crowded in that part of the park.

He was right. Every campervan was at a powered site and the non powered section was pretty empty.

After registering, Miles drove on Andy’s lap to our home for the night while Ani rode on Laurie’s lap. The looks people gave us made Andy smile. But Andy’s smile couldn’t match Miles’ smile when he got to pretend drive a bit after we parked.

Laurie got our laundry together and made a bee line for the facilities. We were burning daylight and feared that our air dried clothes would not have sufficient daylight to dry. We also wanted to get laundry done so we could have dinner before the Christmas parade began.

Andy took the kids to the playground across from the holiday park while Laurie did laundry and chatted with Lucy, who is thru hiking the South Island portion of the Te Aurora Trail.

There was another tractor at this park and at first the kids were excited and playing well at the playground, both on the tractor and on the other structures. But then the sun came out and the kids got hot. So we returned to the van for water and snacks.

Around 530 we started thinking about dinner. Andy had looked up the town of Geraldine the night before and had settled on either burgers or Indian food. Laurie asked a staffer at the holiday park who highly recommended the Indian restaurant so we went there.

Royal India had a small play structure and toys in a designated kid area inside the restaurant that kept the kids entertained while our food was being prepared. In fact it was hard to tear them away once the food was ready and Andy got to dine alone for a few minutes. It has been at least 2 decades since Laurie was at a restaurant that had an indoor playground (McDonald’s) and the food was most certainly not this good!!

Everything was very delicious. Ani ate a lot of chicken tikka masala and Miles ate butter chicken.

We had thought we might watch the Christmas parade while eating but when we heard the band we decided to go out to the street and join the hundreds of other people lining the sidewalks.

One of the first groups in the parade were holding up a sign that read, “tamariki = children, the greatest gift of all.”

Tamariki in Māori means child or children. Andy really appreciated this message as it spoke to him on a deep level and set the stage for how cool and kid focused the parade would be.

But even he couldn’t predict just how cool the parade ended up being. Classic cars, tractors old and new, including steam powered tractors, floats from many schools in the area, nuns on scooters and a tank!

The kids were loving it as well, especially when participants tossed candy their way. Miles’ pockets were full by the time the parade was over.

After the police car went around again, thankfully not blaring his siren this time, it marked the end of the parade so went back into the restaurant to finish dinner.

Naturally all Miles wanted was candy so we told him he could have a piece if he ate 5 more bites of food. He’s never eaten faster in his life, except for other times when candy or ice cream or some other sweet treat was waiting for him.

After dinner we walked back to the holiday park with negotiations around candy fully underway – how much of it could they have, when they could have it, etc.

We finished laundry and went back to the campervan. Miles wanted soup and ate a bowl and a half while Ani had fun using the rear seat armrests as balancing bars and exploring her strength by lifting her legs off the ground and having her arms hold her up while she swung back and forth.

Miles had not napped today and Ani had taken a longer nap but earlier in the day so they went to bed with relative ease.

It’s cooler here in Geraldine and the bugs aren’t that bad. Earlier in the day we purchased bug spray and sprayed the DIY netting in hopes that this combo would really keep the bugs away. We shall see.