Beach flowers

Those lovely photos were taken by my clever husband at Pourerere, on the coast of Central Hawke's Bay, where we went on Jarvis's first holiday over Queen's Birthday Weekend. It was the most horrendous weather imaginable for a beach holiday, but we had a fantastic time hiding in a little old bach right next to the sea.

One of the neatest things was the visitor book, which went back to the 1960's - you could follow some regulars who stayed in the bach as little kids, right up to when they were grown up & came back with their own kids, the lady who owns it now used to visit when she was just a nipper! We left our mark too so that in another 40 years or so some curious visitor can read about our adventure. Unfortunately no crayfish in our story (unlike many of the others), with the snow falling 5 minutes inland it wasn't really a weekend for diving!

An excellent weekend though for hibernating inside, reading books & drinking dark beer. We had a curiously named beer - Three Boys Oyster Stout - which we assumed was just a nifty name, until, after reading the back a bit more carefully, we realised actually used oysters in the brewing process!!! I am probably the most vehement anti oyster campaigner you'll ever meet, so this was NOT what I wanted to read! You couldn't actually taste anything fishy in the beer, but the whole idea of oysters simmering away in the malt creeps me out a bit! Apparently it's an ancient style of beer making, something to do with the health giving properties of stout mixed with the health giving properties of oysters? Curious...