Riverton for Dano's Birthday

We left Pukerau Friday afternoon to go to a "crib" in Riverton. A friend of mine at school has an Auntie Marylyn and Uncle Errol that rented us their crib. It was beautiful. The idea of doing more and having less is now second nature to us. Our efforts to celebrate Dan's birthday were spent organizing the crib, packing, then enjoying the weekend. He did get himself a Stunt Kite which was great fun for 20 minutes then plunged to its death. He also got a pair of jandals (flip flops) that have therapeutic massage bumps where the sole of your foot go. After an hour of wearing them the therapeutic massage bumps are equivalent to Chinese tourture. 

The crib was right on the water, we slept to the sound of waves, woke to beautiful beach and played amongst the waves, the crabs and the flounders. We biked out to the end of Riverton's beach and Abby made it, although many Riverton-ites were probably wondering what her problem was. On Sunday Caroline and Richard (Uncle Errol's sister) arrived at the door in search of the flounder net. They invited us down to the spot where they were going floundering. It was wonderful, we learned so much. The two men suited up in wet suits and dragged the net along the bottom of the river. They walked slowly and then got back to shore with flounder in the net. On the last time they were dragging the net the tide began coming in and Richard got into some trouble. We could hear him making a grunting sound, one of exhaustion. The men had let go of the net and began swimming back to shore. Caroline was out in the water knee deep trying to talk to Richard. By his sounds we knew he was in trouble. He went under twice then cried out a weak "help". Dano ran in, swam to Richard and began pulling him out of the river. Abby was clung to me, Sammer had gone out into the water as far as he could...we all held our breaths. The men got to their feet and Richard thanked Dan as he would have gone under, he thought he was going to drown. What a good lesson for the kids. We are so proud of our hero, and Sammy promises never to bellyache again about having to take swimming lessons. They came back to the crib and taught us how to clean and fillet the flounder. Dano says this was one of his best birthdays.


Until next time,
Samantha