As you can probably tell, the weather here on the South Island has kind of sucked (ya know the whole getting stuck in Dunedin thing). With Keith only working 2 days last week combined with Monday being the Queen's Birthday holiday, we had 6 whole days to go exploring. Keith had one of the best ideas ever-jumping on the short 1 1/2 hour flight to the much warmer, much sunnier North Island, even though just about every South Islander we've talked to thinks a trip to Auckland is a waste of time.
To make this even better, I got my cast off 2 days before we flew away. Words cannot describe how ridiculously happy I was to go on our mini vacation without my purple club following me everywhere. It was amazing. I find out next week if this is a temporary reprieve and if I need surgery-Keith is pretty certain surgery is the next step-but enough about that!
We got to Queenstown early Wednesday morning to fly to Auckland. It was freezing cold and snowy. We got a great view of the snowy Southern Alps on the flight out.
We landed in Auckland and immediately had to take off our South Island wool layers and put of t-shirts and sunglasses! To get out bearings we took a drive up Mt. Eden (Maungawhau in Maori), the highest point in Auckland. The slopes of Mt. Eden/Maungawhau were once densely populated by Māori and the crater is known as the food bowl of Matāoho.
After that it was a short drive along the coast to check out the surrounding bay area of Auckland, specifically to go to St. Heliers and Karaka Bay. Keith had read that this was one of places that the
Treaty of Waitangi had been signed. It is also a beautiful beach and view that feels miles from Aukland, even if it's only 15 mins away.
We made our way to our backpacker, the
City Garden Lodge, in the Parnell neighborhood of Auckland. This is a cute, somewhat trendy neighborhood with a number of delicious restaurants. After a stop at a bar or two, we had an amazing dinner at
Oh Calcutta, one of the best Indian restaurants in Auckland, I should have brought my camera!
Luckily, we did bring the camera to breakfast at Dizengoff, which is kind of super hipster but also serves amazing food, so Keith could take a picture of his eggs benedict that he says were just about the best eggs benedict ever!
With full bellies and full bags of yummy food from a gourmet market we headed off towards the Bay of Islands, taking the senic route.
We stopped at a bay and beach to stretch our legs and lucked out that there just happened to be a few giant red snappers swimming around right by the rocks (I hope you can see the fish, it's reddish purple on the top and iridescent blue on the bottom).
There were also a number of shags nesting with their chicks in the trees.
The best place we stopped that day was not a bay or a beach, but a chocolaterie in the middle of nowhere.
Bennetts Chocolates in Mangawhai was a completely unexpected slice of cocoa covered heaven, with gorgeous truffles, massive slabs of chocolate and intricate chocolate shells.....and did I mention that right next to it was a gelato shop where they serve hand made gelato. I had the best cookies and cream and nugat (which I never knew was a flavor of gelato!) cone ever! I don't know why we didn't just stay there forever!
After this we had to walk off a little of what we had just consumed! We found a little walk on a completely deserted beach that took us to another deserted beach where we got a chance to enjoy a beautiful and peaceful sunset.
After leaving Auckland for the Bay of Islands at about 11 am, we finally got there at about 7om. There we enjoyed breads and spreads and a bottle of wine by the fire in lounge.
Up next, the Bay of Islands and more Northland!
No comments:
Post a Comment