Porridge and Mini Golf

2008-02-01, Auckland, New Zealand

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The day started in a rather energetic fashion with a run down to long beach and some vigorous boxing exercise. Apollo Creed had nothing on us. The day then took a turn for the better with the ever increasingly regular morning event of breakfast. Today’s breakfast saw us getting back in touch with Ronnie’s Scottish ancestry with a nice big pot of porridge. We’re pretty confident that no one else at the campsite was eating porridge. Extremely stuffed and somewhat weighted down we packed up Starbuck and set of on our journey to the big smoke, Auckland.

To break up the journey we many options to stop off at along the way. Sheep world (similar to Dorset’s famous Monkey World but sheep based and without the worlds biggest climbing frame) was looking like a safe bet for a while but we’re not that fussed by sheep and they’re everywhere anyway. Instead we stopped in at a cafe at the top of a hill boasting the best views in the north of the north island. A slight exaggeration but good nonetheless. After that we called in on the Honey Centre they had bees and lots of honey, no surprises there. Ed being the honey fun that he is tucked in to the free tasters and determined what he already knew that solid honey was better than runny honey! We then set of on the road and stopped down the coast for lunch at a lovely beach (Orewa) just north of Auckland.

We made it in to Auckland for around 2 pm. Being a Friday it was busy and parking was impossible so we headed down to Mission Beach to chill out for a while. On the way to the beach Ronnie spotted a Mini Golf course and demanded that we played it on the way back (Actually Ed wanted to play and Ronnie stupidly mentioned having seen one having forgotten that Ed is as competitive at mini golf as Tiger Woods in the US Open). A nice little course but certainly not the quality of the one at Halls Gap. After that we headed to town, checked in to our Hostel and headed out for a meal at the Hilton. This was a slightly late birthday present for Ronnie and it was a very enjoyable evening with some lovely grub and local wine – a bit of a change from home cooking in Starbuck!!.