We’re up early – what a surprise – and we go out walking and find this beautiful lakeside park – with great walking trails. Right up the road from the hotel.
Very livable city, Hamilton is! Actually all of New Zealand – they are very focused on outdoorsy activities, walking hiking, parks, green-land. Lovely mind set.
After breakfast (cereal, “tinned” fruit, English muffins), we organize our bags and get in the car with the GPS set to Auckland. It’s a little over 1 1/2 hours of fairly easy driving today – no hearty roads! But their definition of highways matches the Hawaiian definition – 2 lanes with maybe a divider. Here though – the speed limit is almost always 100KM. Yikes!
But, we make it to the car rental return without a hitch. Hop on the Super Shuttle and are in downtown Auckland before noon. Of course our room isn’t ready, but that’s ok, we figured that, so we go wander around in town, scoping out restaurants and grocery stores! We had our eye on Eliot Stables, which we’d read had a dozen restaurants and looked interesting. Ends up being a high class food court. Fabulous restaurants – some with “inside” dining, but most sharing tables in the middle of a dark wood and intimate “food court”—best way to describe it! There were a couple restaurants we wanted to try – figured we’d do dinner here tonight and tomorrow. But seeing as it was lunchtime now, we decided to try Frankie’s Wurstbude restaurant which features 12 different sausages as their main meals.
We choose the chicken and peppadew (oh Maggi – what you have started with those peppadews!!!) and the Spanish chorizo – along with green salad and two different types of sauces (each chosen specifically for the sausage). Great deal and even better food!
It’s a huge amount of salad, large sausage and it’s a very cute setting. And way cheaper than anything else around. So we’re happy campers!
After lunch, we head out in search of the pier so we can figure out where we need to go to board the ship on Monday. As we are finding our way in the city, we pass the Sky Tower – that huge iconic spire in the middle of town.
There are Sky Jumpers about to jump – so we sit and watch as they jump from about 192M or 600+ feet! No F’ing way! It’s all controlled, I get that – but no way – no how – unh uh! Ed says he’ll do it – but not for $225! Well, whatever, I’ll wave. Or not – I probably couldn’t even look!
Off we go to the pier, where they are having the International Buskers Festival showcasing 11 of the most famous street performers. You know, fire eaters, acrobats, jugglers, mimes and the like. There is also the Seafood festival ($20 just to get in, then food and drink separate – not), and tons of other activities because this is Anniversary Weekend – with Monday being a national holiday. It is the 173rd Anniversary of Auckland and there are tons of things going on all weekend, including a regatta on Monday. We should have prime seats from our balcony on the ship!
We wander around a bit, then hit the grocery store for supplies and head back to the hotel. Our room is ready – and it’s great! Huge! We’re supposed to have a 1 bedroom, but end up with a 2 bedroom – which is great for us since we can stow all the luggage in there! It has a pretty decent kitchen, sitting area and there’s a washing machine! Yay! It’s a washer and dryer all in one. Never, ever seen one of those – so this should be interesting! But it’s a bonus since it will totally help with our laundry needs!
We get all settled in, shower, then go to dinner across the street at the Mustard Seed – a Malaysian restaurant we’ve read about.
The place is oddly adorable. It is in a hotel, in the middle of the city, but the ceiling looks like an old wooden airplane hanger – with cloudy skylights and all. The décor is Malaysian – with different wood screens, flowers and little artifacts around the room. Staff was wonderful – the owner, clearly Malaysian, was so friendly, talking to us, making suggestions – just a great experience.
And the food didn’t disappoint either! We ordered a shared appetizer platter with spring rolls, beef satay, chips and samosas – excellent. Then for our mains – I had wanted some traditional Malaysian dish they had run out of so the owner suggested I try the Chicken Rendang – fabulous – can’t tell you a think about what was in it – besides coconut flakes – but it was great – and HUGE! Ed had some sort of Lamb (the only lamb on the menu) and it too was extraordinary, with a rich red spicy sauce. HUGE as well! We were bad and had 2 Roti as well (basically freshly made and grilled croissant dough…..yummy!).
It was so much food, we ended up taking most of it home for dinner tomorrow night – the bonus of having an apartment instead of a traditional hotel room!
Back at home – we’re blogging and reading and just hanging out. Tomorrow – a full day adventure on the island of Waiheke.
No comments:
Post a Comment