Otama Beach

Today we spent the day with Kate and her kids, and my mum, at Otama Beach - truly a paradise. It's a long white sand beach with rolling green pastures behind it. It has a wide lagoon in the middle which is perfect for the kids to play in. The slope at the back of the beach is made of bright orange clay, so we all had a clay body wrap (see Kate’s picture).

        

The back of the beach is shaded by pahutakawa trees, which have a big canopy of dark green leaves. They flower bright red in December, so they’re called “Christmas trees”, but we just missed that this year.

It was warm and windy today, so the surf was up. The water was lovely and warm.  I got stung by a jelly fish – I had seen some welts on a patient, but fortunately mine didn’t leave any marks. There are reports of sharks, but Kate was totally unconcerned: apparently there are always sharks around, but they rarely cause any problems. James and Lilian were in the water for 5 hours straight! After my sunburn at Kuaotunu Beach on Sunday, we all have "rash" shirts for swimming: the UV protector shirts that all Kiwi kids and all pasty white Canadians wear!

We now have Boyo for a couple of nights, and Sam is staying with Kate. It will be a pleasant break from their fairly constant bickering. Although I am impressed with them sharing a room - they usually chat and play for a little while before going to sleep.

Work has been excellent. I got to relocate a shoulder in the clinic yesterday, do my own IV antibiotics the other night, and then I had to go to the local police station to see a patient in custody. All very exciting!