'Twas the day after Christmas, and here at the beach, we all had on suncreen, the day was a peach.

Kaitarakihi beach is one of our favourites. It's the one with parking right next to the beach, the one with the fossils, the one with spiral cone shells, a shallow cave, a mini-blowhole, and so much more. It even has wild chickens. Yes, chickens that escaped from someone long ago and have made the beaches in that area home. 

Today, it surprised us with a really special gift. A genuine puffer fish was washed up on the shore. You've heard of them I'm sure. Called fugu in Japan where they like to eat them raw and where a few people each year are poisoned by the shoddy knife skills of some 2nd-rate chef. Some organs in the fugu are highly poisonous.  Since the condition of this one was WAY beyond fresh, the biggest danger from it were it's sizable spines.

 Kaitarakihi is in a bay. The Tasman Sea and Australia are beyond the two headlands. 

"Let's go fly a kite, up to the highest height!" The pohutukawa with the red blossoms didn't show up as well as I hoped it would.

 Beautiful cliffs and lush vegetation. 

  Pictures don't do it justice. And a few too many clouds that keep the colours from being their brightest. 

 The mini-blow hole in action. Got sand up your shorts? Here's your solution. 

 Arram's four tower sand castle. He was the architect and engineer, Grammy acted as general contractor. 

 From inside a shallow cave located right in the center of the beach.

Another view from the cave. 

There he is on the sand. I decided to move it. There were kids dashing around all over this area. I can't imagine if one of them would step on these spines. They're stiff and very sharp.

I've moved it to a rock along the cliff and Arram helped me rinse off the sand. Note the beak-like mouth. 

We found a couple of purple sea snails this time. We have not seen that color of shell before.

See? Wild chicken dead ahead.  This one was giving us dirty looks. Kiwis are tough; kiwi chickens are even tougher. This one had a walk not unlike Edward G. Robinson. Needed the cigar though to pull it off properly. 

We spent several hours at the beach. It's surprising how tired you can get from admiring one of NZ's watery jewels. We had a quick dinner of turkey and gravy over potato pancakes and spent the rest of the evening in quiet play and videos. Here is Amiri wearing a paper crown from a Christmas cracker. * Look at how he has grown. His legs are starting to stretch out. 

Amiri starts to fabricate his tower from Fiddlesticks. The living room (lounge) is looking properly messed up after hours of play. 

*These are Christmas crackers. Two people pull them apart. A small gun powder charge makes a 'crack' and the insides spill out.

There is always a folded up paper crown, a prize of some sort, and a joke on a piece of paper.  -djf