What the boys got up to!

Well, Mel's covered what the girls got up to for their camping trip, so, as promised, here's what us boys got up to for ours!
The destination we were heading for was Waitawheta Hut (try pronouncing that one correctly, all you non-Kiwis!), which is at the end of the Waitawheta Tramway track. This is a track which follows the route of an old tramway (active in the 1920's) which was used to haul huge Kauri logs out of the forests. Because it's an old tramway, it's relatively flat and easy walking, at least compared to going up a mountain. I'd read that it was a good first overnighter for families, so I thought Ben and I should be able to manage it.
The first part of the walk is across some farmland - interesting for Ben ("look, Dad, more cow poo!"), not so interesting for me. Once we got into the Forest Park itself, the forest gradually got denser and nicer - by which time I had to carry Ben (he'd walked for about 30-45 min, which isn't too bad I guess). There'd been a few people on the track, so I was a little concerned about getting a bed at the hut - there's no booking system, so I was expecting it to be full for the long weekend, particularly as the weather forecast had been good. As it turned out, we were the first ones there for the night (arriving at 1pm). So we got to grab the spots that we wanted (bottom bunks!). After some lunch, I tried to convince Ben to have a rest on the bed, which wasn't very successful. After that, we went down to the river to have a swim - Ben decided it was too cold to swim, so he just watched me as I slipped off a rock and into the water. "Can you do that again, Dad?"
After some time hanging around the hut, watching as more and more people turned up, we had some dinner (by which time the hut was well and truly packed - there ended up being lots of people sleeping outside on the decks). After dinner we had some wine and blue cheese (well, just cheese for Ben - it's tough being 3) and then went for a stroll down to the river again to take some photos. Then it was bedtime, which went pleasantly smoothly - Ben lay in bed and chatted to me briefly before rolling over and going straight to sleep.
The morning started around 6:30 when it was light - we weren't the first ones up, which was nice. Oats porridge for breakfast and then packing up to head back down the track to meet Mel and Joanna. It ended up taking a little longer than we had planned, just because I got Ben to walk a bit of the way, which ends up being pretty slow (understandably). Ben was a little grumpy (just from getting less sleep than usual I think), but we got out happily enough.
So there you go, that was Ben's second overnight bushwalking trip - he enjoyed it, and I enjoyed it. And we both lived to tell the tale.