A little Merlot with your hatchback burrito?

Well first of all, Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukah to everyone.

After a brief visit in Wellington with the family, and many hours “searching” on the internet for a new car, we departed north for Wanganui with our new ride “Merlot”. Merlot is a beautiful wine coloured (hence the name) Renault, a little French car that has taken the place of Fern. Last week was his maiden voyage, which we were able to share with our Canadian friend Jocelyn. For starters, it was definitely not a traditional Christmas for us, what Canadians “traditionally” go on a canoe trip over Christmas? Oh well, that’s what we were looking for, something different so that we didn’t miss our families too much (we did still miss you though).

Like many of you, it was not a white Christmas, but a wet one, a very very wet one…at least the days leading up to it. So wet in fact that our 4 day canoe journey down the Wanganui River was nearly cancelled due to the river being between 4 and 6 meters higher than usual! Holy cow eh?! The river did end up going down significantly and we ended up having a magnificent trip despite the chocolaty brown water and the slippery, muddy, gooey banks (and dirty bums due to that said slipperyness). Join us on our little pictographic journey of the river trip….

...this picture is self explanatory...

Our first sight of the Wanganui River, despite the smiles, we are all shaking with fear with the thought of getting on the extremely swollen river...

...so we decide to have some burritos from the back of "Merlot" (the car).

Here is day one on the river. Waterfalls like this are everywhere due to the rain, however few were captured on photograph since our cameras pretty much lived in the dry bags.

Despite the rain and dirty water, we were still pumped to be on the river and not a campground.

Yum! Christmas diner, Kumera (sweet potatoe), capsicum (red pepper), quinoi (quinoi), and peperoni!

...and dessert! (the water level was going down so fast on the river that this bottle was actually in the water 30 minutes earlier!)

Post bubbly, loving life and probably thinking of family.

Christmas morning we were rewarded with sunshine...some of us may have gotten a little crazy after 3 days on the river...

We saw so many animals on this trip, wild goats, sheep, a billion ducks (and 4 ducklings), 3 very large possums (sneakily trying to get our food at night), 2 rats, and a Tui in a pear tree...er...flax tree.

Have a Happy New Year!