I have the PET-CT scan today. Uncle J drops me off and will pick me up afterwards, in about 2-3 hours. I am familiar with the format of the scan – IV line put in arm, blood sugar test taken, wait 30 minutes. Radioactive tracer given in IV form, wait one hour. Have scan – only 15 minutes. Wait for nurse to remove IV line. Done. This time I bring headphones for the hour long wait and am super cosy lying in the recliner with a blanket, listening to music. There is nothing I can do about the scan. I’m already Stage 4 and the results aren’t going to change that so why worry? 

Of course everything takes longer than it should and I am there for the full 3 hours. When I finally get home, Susannah has almost finished packing the van. The weather forecast for the weekend looks amazing so we have decided to go to Raglan.

The drive down is uneventful, not too much traffic and apart from a brief stop at Mercer (the Mercer Cheese shop has Dutch liquorice as well as amazing cheeses) we drive straight through to Raglan. We have picked Ruapuke Campground to try out this time. It’s advertised as old camping style of yesteryear, peace and tranquility the way it meant to be. I’m not sure exactly what is meant by that but it sounds great! The campsite, 28km south of Raglan, turns out to be a well spread out area of grassy knolls and rolling hills with some flatter areas nearer the facilities. There are no designated sites and it’s quite busy already but we manage to find a fairly flat spot to set up in. We put up our green summer shelter as a basecamp and park the van beside it.

We decide to check out the beach which is a 15 minute walk across farmland and over 2 electric fences via very rickety wooden steps.

On the way we see paragliders floating playfully in the sky. One passes by us so low that he almost hits powerlines that he (and we) did not see at all in the late evening golden light. He is saved at the last moment by a guy walking further up the hill shouting and waving at him. 

Ruapuke surf beach, when we finally sea it, is beautiful.

We decide to return to camp via the road instead of uphill over the fields. This is a bit of a mistake as the road twists and turns New Zealand style and it takes forever. I’m just about despairing that I won’t make it when we see the campground below us. We decide that tomorrow we’ll drive to the beach and base ourselves there for the day. It’ll literally be a 2 minute drive.

After dinner Susannah beats me at chess and we call it a night. The stars in the sky are absolutely incredible and the campground is serene and quiet. I feel more at peace already.