Riversdale New Year

I can't think of a better way to have welcomed in 2009 than the couple of days we had out in Riversdale beach. A whole bunch of friends headed out to the coast, pitched their tents and baked in the sun as we farewelled 2008 and saw in the New Year. It was sooo hot, so going for some swims in the sea and finding bits of shade were mandatory. We had a few tenting issues when the wind picked up, so didn't get much sleep on the first night as we had to get up and re-peg our tent 4 times to stop it blowing away. Eeek.

Riversdale Beach

Flatmates hit the beach

On New Years Eve, the covers band jammed and Meesh did some amazing fire poi, - just incredible. We then headed off to the beach and were just mesmorised by the most incredible host of stars I've ever seen. It was so clear the milkyway seemed to touch the horizon and arc far behind you. We lost count of how many shooting stars there were too - what an evening.

Fire poi

On the way back to Wellington on we hopped over to Castlepoint and had a wee adventure up to the Lighthouse, just further up the east coast. The views were spectacular, and the finding of the day was a little dehydrated shark that had been washed up onto the cliffs below the lighthouse.


And now I'm just hanging in the capital for a quiet few days before heading up to Feilding for Soul Survivor on Monday. There's set up before the festival, and the rest of the punters arrive on Wednesday - Monday. It'll just be a great week to hang out with so many amazing people from all over the country (yay Rich!) putting faith into action and getting our hands dirty with the local serving projects, chewing on some challenging talks on the Glory of God and spending time in worship.

You've got to love the summer holidays...