Today was Jamie’s 33rd birthday. How lovely it was to spend it with him. Kerry and I had sorted out a cake and candles yesterday, and Kerry had even put up decorations in the holiday house! We sang Happy Birthday after breakfast. The main birthday event was very exciting; we went on a speedboat on the Matukituki River, starting from the Glendhu Valley. Our friendly guide, James, told us all about the area. He also drove the boat very fast in the extremely shallow river; sometimes we could hear it scraping over the pebbles underneath as we whizzed along. He also span the boat 360 degrees from time to time, it was great fun. It must have taken about an hour to get to the furthest point that the boat could reach up the river, James told us that this varies according to how much water is in the river due to rainfall. It was about average when we were there. Then we left the boat and went for a walk through meadows and forest glades (mainly tall New Zealand beech trees which have much smaller leaves than our own) and we saw a waterfall and lots of meadow flowers. Then back to the boat and off we went back down river, swerving about at a rapid pace. It was a really excellent trip.
In the evening we celebrated Jamie’s birthday at the excellent Francesca’s Italian Kitchen. We had a great evening and were too full to eat any birthday cake back at the house.
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