Early morning rise for me today, I had energy to burn and was up by 6am. After wriggling and rustling in my sleeping bag for at least half an hour I got up and headed for a walk around the campsite and to grab a long hot shower. We like the Masterton campsite. Firstly, the showers are free! This is one of the few we have encountered lately, there is no time limit on the showers so there is no need to try and get your hair washed and conditioned and you washed as well before the water cuts off and you are left either with a final cold rinse (or a half soapy body and head when ALL the water stops, as at Castle Point) and you are asked for another 50c or $1 for you to get more water. It is incredible how fast you get at showering when you have a max of four minutes, especially when it takes one minute for the water to warm up, Nat is a demon at it. The Masterton showers also have extremely forceful pressure, which is great to massage those tired muscles.

The second cool factor was that it was sunny and the wind was getting blustery, as I was not paddling it was another chance for the trapped tiger to keep busy. I was into my other addiction when still for too long, to find the washing machine and everything that needed washing was grabbed. This campsite has the BEST machines I have ever used, and again they are free. I was grinning and it was only just 7.30! I am some days so easy to please, dumb I know but exciting when you have been in dust and the ocean for a little while, the simple day to day things we take for granted are the things that become rather exotic. Oh my, dear me, what have I become? :)

Next it was time to sit and look at the upcoming weather forecasts and hope they were still on track. I jotted down the next five days on some note paper to try get some pre planing done and to try and not annoy Nat to much. I am not sure if I am very at all successful at that because I am the most noisy person when trying to rustle and forage through my bags of gear, oops, sorry support team.

Coffee for breakfast, then another cup just because why not. "You had any breakfast yet?" is a comment passed my way! There is always a bit of a concern from the team when I get onto coffee first thing in the morning as it makes me more hyper than normal. The next thing was to go and collect T2 from Mainfreight... or not. Auckland is frantic with Christmas freight so poor T2 missed the cut. Not everything can be as I want. They have promised me tomorrow and I have emailed Auckland to remind them. Poor Charlie at Mainfreight has since then fielded 3 more calls from me checking and rechecking T2 is going to be arriving and we are welcome to go Mainfreight depot at 7am to see if the truck has arrived and unloaded, fingers crossed they are running on time!

We brainstormed today, we have tweaked our donation page and now have options for you to select so you receive a small gift depending on your donation. Please go and check it out, (here) we are, as you know, raising funds for a charity and also it would be great for Redz NZ Journey Team to have a little more funding. Every little bit helps with petrol and day to day costs.

I practised doing hand/head stands, did some crazy yoga poses, rested in the hot Masterton sunshine. I helped/nagged Nat to do some stretches, we used some of our homemade moisturiser/tanning lotion (another of Red's crazy potions). I even smiled at how many bees there are in this part of the country, they were everywhere. I love bees and find them pretty amazing wee insects, considering in Auckland there seem so few. I have my own beehives at home to try and help out, the easiest pets I have ever had. Nat started working on pictures for the Redz Coffee table book and did some updates on the website.

We are off to the supermarket for dinner items. I am yearning to get back on the water and am mindful of the many days I seem to have been on dry land, thanks El Nino weather to turn up this summer!! Tomorrow is looking promising, and we hope to be in Wellington early next week.

Red

If you look closely, you can see the crazy shining through in her eyes :)