s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

I hope you all had a great 2005/2006 celebration. We went over to Sibylle’s place for an evening of food and fun. Many of her son’s German-playgroup friends were there, so lots of little kiddies running around babbling in both English and German.

New Years day we slept in a bit, though not as much as we would have liked (early bright sky will do that). Then I had a crazy idea-let’s go to the beach with our ‘paca! We called around and found Melanie and Susan were psyched to go, and calling some friends up north in Paraparaumu pulled up another 5 people. We loaded up the ‘paca, and headed north.

The loading went well. There was some squabbling and argy-bargy, but nothing too bad. When they got to the beach they were all very well behaved- probaby due to wild over-stimulation. Some of the best bits came when we led them down into the surf. By leading Hyouki I got everyone else (on leads) to follow. The little cria were belly-deep in the water. Pointer was having a complete blast. He would leap backwards as the waves broke againsts him, them go charging back into the surf to chase the receding wave.

They all became so excited that they just started running down the beach- dragging any human on lead who could not run fast enough to keep up. Even fat, lazy Jim cantered along for a good 200 meters!

We discovered that walking into ankle-deep water triggers a “need to pee” reflex in alpaca. And thay apparently have limitless bladders.

We also re-discovered the cute-power of alpaca. After having them for a few years this effect has largely worn-off on us. Not so for many of our friends and passerbys. Kari kept threatening that she was just going to load little Hyouki into her car and take him home. One woman whose beach-house we passed in Peka Peka followed us to offer water for the ‘paca, and tea for us!

All in all a wonderful esxperience. One we will have to repeat. The one downside? We forgot to bring our camera! Photos will go up of the ‘paca frolicing in the surf when we can get copies from Melanie or Beverly who did rememebr their cameras.