Our Winter Holiday, Day 4

Well, the day dawned bright & sunny.....we did a little shopping before leaving for points East. I bought a DVD for myself; and another for the kids - Stingray. Around 11am, we left Palmerston North for Hawkes Bay. We stopped for a while in Dannevirke; it's a special little town, as it was settled by Norwegians...! There is a place there called Dave's Den; I bought a reproduction Matchbox car there that I remember owning 35 years ago, but which I had sold, or somehow lost. Dave has 8000 model cars in his Den. We go there whenever we're in Dannevirke. If one of my children is with me when I'm about to leave Dave's Den, I buy him or her a model car; this time Ben was the lucky one.

We back-tracked a little way into Dannevirke looking for somewhere to have a picnic lunch; we stopped at a large park. I went off in search of a public toilet. My mission successful, I drove back to find one of my boys playing with a lad who was the adopted son of a nice couple; Dave & Marthe (their names were something like that). Dave is from Yorkshire; Marthe is from Germany. It was nice to meet them. After lunch, we carried on to Hastings; it was wonderful to see our good friends, Wendee and Mitch, again! And their children! They had written a welcome on the driveway for us; with our names, and footprints we had to follow, to get to their House. We had Soup & Toast (home-made bread) for Tea. It was a lovely evening!