Time for country number 5 - New Zealand! Like Australia, I'm kind of surprised how different it feels to home. Even more surprised given that for my first 4 days I'm staying with Em at her place in Auckland.
After over ambitiously planning to get ourselves over to waiheke island for some walking, benching, wining, having got in at ridiculous o'clock from our flight the night before, we opted for a little more chilled start to our Sunday morning. We headed over to Mount Eden for breakfast at a brunch hotspot called Frasers. Granola, yoghurt, cooked pears and some kind of berry compte got me in the right mood I can tell you... Then we walked up Mount Eden itself, one of a number of small volcanoes that the city is built around and took in the amazing view: A very small but refreshingly flat cityscape with the striking sky tower striking out from the middle.
We then went for a driving tour of the CBD, the city's beaches, Mission Bay, St Hellier, before heading off food shopping. This may extremely dull for you but I love going food shopping in other countries. You get such a distinct feel for a place when you see what they stock, how they lay it all out. Plus there's that familiarity which is always comforting. In NZ they are super health conscious... People running everywhere, health food cafés etc, so the supermarket reflected that. Needless to say I didn't opt for health... I walked away with some chocolate flavoured strawberries on my next visit. One of my 5 a day...
In the evening we headed up to the North Shore, to Long Bay national park to have a BBQ with some of Em and Hakan's friends by the beach. I do love how nz and Australia have these random public BBQs everywhere... Not much use in the uk I suspect sadly... The food and the location were perfect. Finished off with a nice cuppa and my first ever caramel tim tam... Basically an elite form of Penguin... (The chocolate bar... Not the animal..)
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