Boxing day morning was organised in our typical family regimented way, and under the watchful eye of my Uncle James, we were all packed and ready to leave the house well before our scheduled time.

Our first stop was lunch at Herzog Vineyard, in Blenheim in the Malborough region. Malborough produces world famous wine that’s exported across the world. I love a Malborough Sauvignon Blanc!

We had an amazing meal at the bistro in the gorgeous garden. Check out the gorgeous photos that my cousin took of the vineyard, it was beautiful.

After a delicious lunch we drove onwards towards our home for the next two nights; a Musterers hut in the middle of a sheep station.  It was a 45 minute off road drive from the main road to the hut, there were a couple of interesting moments when the bottom of our car scraped across the rocks.

One of the first things we noticed when we arrived was that the bathroom was 200m from the hut!! On closer inspection we discovered that the light didn’t work in the bathroom, so we had to keep the door open. We ended up going in twos!

Our hut was very basic, although luckily had electricity and running water!!

Six of us slept in the bunks inside, with the three others sleeping in a tent pitched just outside. It was certainly cosy. The idea was to go hiking around the hut, however the weather was pretty miserable so we ended up just going on a short walk, playing cards and entertaining ourselves.

Unfortunately, as with many places in New Zealand, there were huge number of sand flies. Before leaving the hut we had to cover up as much as possible and smother ourselves with deet. I still managed to come away with quite a few bites! We all got bitten when having an outdoor shower, it was so refreshing and totally worth it though.

Apparently, one of the reason’s that my Uncle had chosen for us to stay at the hut was to have some family bonding time, but also to see the stars clearly without any light pollution- unfortunately the drizzle and low cloud meant that we didn’t actually see any stars!!

It was a very different way to spend Boxing Day, but fun to hang out as a big family without phones, tvs or the internet. but after two nights we were ready to head back to civilisation.

I am not a very good camper! I really don’t enjoy sleeping in a tent and would far rather stay in a B and B or hostel. I’m slightly worried about camping at the festival that I’m going to this summer!