Skip to main content

Road Trip

I'm not generally the sort of person to make wild & outragous over-exagerations, but I think that this entry may qualify as an exception.  The Coromandel region in New Zealand is probably the most beautiful place in the world.  But more on that later.

We spent Christmas with our good friends Dom, Jen & Jordan.  We had a fairly traditional christmas - a nice roast dinner, movie and presents. Very pleasent evening was had, and we were all nicely full by the end of it.  Jen's mince pies were remarkably good :)

The following morning, Jacqui and I went north.  It was our other good friend Dave's (60th!) birthday on the 27th, but since he lives in Auckland, we decided to head a day before so that we'd be freah enough to wish him many happy returns without collapsing in exhaustion.  As always the drive north is outstandingly beautiful, but long (9 fekking hours!). The views of the mountains along the desert road are breathtaking, even after seeing them so many times.



We left quite late in the day and arrived in Auckland at about 8:30pm.  The hotel was very nice, with pleasent views over a lake.  Being that it was boxing day, we concidered ourselves lucky to find that the local Indian restaurant was open.  We were the only ones there, but enjoyed our curries with Cobra beer very much regardless.

The following day, we spend shopping in Auckland.  I must say, we were very impressed : Auckland seems to be a clean, functional city.  The area around the harbour is beautiful and there is an endless supply of nice pubs and restaurants.  All in all, we now perhaps have a reason to move north.  The better climate certainly adds to this...

In the evening, we went back to hotel and later, we had a very nice dinner with Dave and his family.  I had fish, and it was excellent :)

The day after we started our road trip proper.  We set the tomtom (more on this marvelous device in a later post. Suffice to say : it rocks) and headed for Thames, Coromandel.

We had arranged to meet Tom, Alfa and her mum and brother in the town for lunch.  It was also my birthday (tengo 33 anos!).

After some aimless wandering around the town, we found a little pub where we had some lunch.  Can't remember what I had, but I think it was tasty.  I also had cake.

We then set the Tomtom again to take us to Hahei, which is closest town to Cathedral Cove : the Most Beautiful Place on Earth (tm).

I'm serious here: Cathedral Cove is the place you always see in fancy photos of New Zealand.  White sand, natural arch formations, jungle-like backdrop.  Oh my!  Don't take my word for it; check it out:


The famous arch was partially blocked off due to falling rocks.  We braved it anyway.


Here's the white sand a jungle backdrop I promised.

We spent several hours in the area, enjoying the fantastic weather and splashing about in the water.  We even threw a frisby ;)

More on what happened after Cathedral Cove in the next exciting episode.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Arráncame la vida

Last night we attended the first night of the Hola Mexico Film Festival in Wellington.  The first movie of the season was Arráncame la vida (Tear This Heart Out) , the story of a woman who marries a Mexican General in the years following the Mexican Revolution of 1910 .   I found it to be a real genre breaker as far as Mexican cinema goes.  Over the years, we've seen several Mexican movies, and the general theme seems to be heart breaking tragedy, and rarely a happy ending.  This one was different however.  Although tragedy played a huge part in the story (I don't want to give anything away, but don't get too attached to the Carlos character.  He doesn't last long..), the ending seems quite uplifting.  Well, comparatively at least. The story starts when the protagonist is 15 years old, and being whirlwinded into a marriage with a famous (or infamous) general, twice her age.  It tracks her sexual awakening as a teenager, through to her...

Auckland is off the menu (for now)

Jeese, but it was close. I was offered a very good perm role in Auckland and the agent was telling me that they needed a decision pretty damn quick!  Apparently they were going to meet with the company that very day, and wanted a yea or nay before COB the following day ("Close Of Business", just in case that's a stupid TLA - "Three Letter Acronym"). So, I was very pleased when I got word that a local company here in Wellington were interested in talking to me about a 6 month contract. The interview was arranged for the following morning. The interview went well: brief but covered most of the things you'd expect.  Nothing too technical but enough to weed out the stoopids. I think I did well enough, because they told me I was the "preferred candidate".  After some panic regarding getting by references sorted, the offer was made. I called the agent in Auckland, and she was very gracious. I started a few weeks back (hence the lack of updates ...

Gardening Rocks

Since we moved into our house here in the windy suburb of Newlands, we have been endeavouring to grow our own fresh produce. Early this summer, I planted Peas, Potatoes, Onions, Tomatoes and Silver beat. So far, the peas and potatoes have been the most successful, but I hold good hopes for the onions and tomatoes later in the summer. The silver beat, well, I don't really like it anyway... Peas... ...and spuds For dinner yesterday we bought some decent quality filet steak and some prawns.  If that doesn't scream Surf N Turf, I don't know what does! We picked some peas and dug up some potatoes. Oh boy: excellent! There's nothing quite like having diner that is mostly made up your own garden produce.