Yurts and hops in New Zealand
A feeding frenzy of small cousins
It’s a little bit of time out, New Zealand. Time out to enjoy coffees and summertime, fresh sweetcorn and ice cream with cousins.
It’s just a pity that it sometime takes so long to get there – this year’s trip was an especially epic 52 hour door-to-door marathon. Never again. Until we go back home after a much-anticipated, fast-approaching wedding.
In the meantime, there’s lots of family to catch up with and our trip so far has been at On The Track Lodge in the Marlborough Sounds. Together with the Husband’s parents, his sister, her husband, their two kids, and our girls, we took a boatload of family over to this very special place – read about our last trip here – and stayed for two nights.
We got to sleep in a yurt. A yurt! A large, round canvas yurt with a varnished wooden floor, bean bags and comfy bunk beds. I thought the girls might expire from pure excitement before they ever went to sleep. Never mind me. There was a stack of books about Arthur Ransome for sleepy afternoon reading on those bean bags, a kite to fly when we were feeling a little bit more energetic and lots of good food at very regular intervals.
But it’s not all about eating, you know. Oh no. There’s beer to be sampled and hops to investigate for the book. Research. And writing. And deadlines.
Back to it now.
Nelson Sauvin hops, the day before harvest
