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Visiting New Zealand – Part Two

I guess there should be a part two to my New Zealand trip, even if I’m a little lazy to type out a long winded post about it. Heh.

Just chilled a little on the second day in Christchurch. Made breakfast at cj’s place. Pancakes, eggs and bacon, plus lattes from his machine. He has a nice big backyard overlooking a mini jungle of sorts. Very serene and it’s just tranquil enough for you to just doze off on a lazy chair outside. Stayed indoors and went out only for lunch. Stuffed myself with more eggs, bacon and coffee. A common food in New Zealand is kumara, which is probably just an exotic name for sweet potato. You can have it boiled or fried like chips, dipped in aioli, which is a garlic mayo kind of sauce.

Went to the local Belgian Beer Cafe for dinner and had nothing but steamed/baked mussels. New Zealand green lip mussels are huge, and oh so tasty (as opposed to the scrawny looking ones in Melbourne after going back and comparing). There was a special pot of mussels for the day, a mustard and wine sauce steamed mussels. It was so good I soaked up every last drop of sauce like a sponge. Had ice cream for dessert and went up Mount Eden for the night view. Auckland’s skyline is rather flat and wasn’t very inspiring for photos.

Fast forward to the next day, took a drip down to Piha beach. It’s a black sand beach due to previous volcanic activity, making the sand a fine dust of gray. As with all beaches by the sea, you can smell the saline in the air and there’s a nice cool breeze just enveloping you. You do note a sense of carefreeness as people just take their time to soak in the sun, or kids at play building sand castles or just throwing mud at each other.

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Also went to the Auckland Museum on our last day at Auckland. Vyanne missed the Maori Hakka dance and was disappointed, as that would have been a highlight of the trip. Made our way to the nearby greenhouse (called the Winter Garden) and I was tickled to see eggplants growing in abundance in a controlled environment. Was also watching ducks by the pond before it started raining on us. Heh, that was the last bit of Auckland we saw before leaving for the airport to go to Christchurch, and if I’m up to it, I might write about that leg of the trip as well.