So, since my cousin (Hannah) has been here, we have done so much that I've found it quite difficult to scrape enough time together to post on the blog. I have therefore decided to do a little mish-mash of the stories from the past couple of weeks. As you read on, you will come to see that there is a theme to this post.... FOOD!
The first couple of days involved ice-cream and Mexican food. Early on in Hannah's stay we walked up the hill to Parnell to get my watch fixed. While we were waiting we decided to pop into a gelato shop and grab an ice-cream each. It took an age to decide since there were so many yummy flavours - snickers, hokey-pokey (similar to crunchie ice-cream with honeycomb), butterscotch. We each opted for a sundae with hot caramel sauce. whipped cream and crushed nuts on top. I chose a scoop of mars ice-cream, one of coconut, and one of chocolate sorbet. It was PHENOMENAL!! The chocolate sorbet was my fave, so rich and chocolately, and when drenched in hot caramel sauce...... I'm wiping drool from the corners of my mouth right now!
A few days later (I think it was actually the evening after) and we decided to go out for some food at a local Mexican restaurant. It was located right by the ferry terminal so we had a lovely view of the harbour while we ate. I opted for a burrito with grilled chicken, rice, beans, hot salsa, guacamole and loads of jalapeño peppers, and Hannah chose nachos with marinaded steak on the top. Both were lovely, and we sat outside and had a good gossip (predominantly about food I think).
Last weekend one of my friends from the Coastguard kindly offered to take us North of Auckland, over to the west coast to a few of the towns, back across to the east coast, and then home to Auckland. We first popped to a place called Kaipara which has a huge harbour, apparently it's the fourth biggest in the world. It's also a place the Coastguard get a lot of calls from as it is a dangerous crossing to get from the harbour to the sea.
On our way to a place called Helensville we made a few stops. We passed several farms selling some interesting fruits, so pulled in and purchased some 'nashi' and 'tamarillos'. Nashi are kind of a cross between an apple and a pear, they are shaped like an apple and look like an apple on the inside, but have the texture and taste of a pear. Tamarillos look a bit like a plum on the outside, a passion fruit on the inside, and taste quite bitter. They're ok with a bit of sugar on the top though.
We also made visits to 'Macnuts' and 'The Honey Centre'. Macnuts is a place in the countryside that produces macadamia nuts and then delivers them to retailers all over New Zealand. They also have a little coffee shop where you can buy some of their products including hand cream and a variety of cakes. I bought a bag of dark chocolate covered macadamia nuts and they are LOVELY. I would definitely buy again!
The Honey Centre was more popular than Macnuts, and there were quite a tourists inside. The first thing that greeted everyone was a little table with about 15 pots of honey and some tasting sticks. Needless to say I spent quite a lot of time tasting each one very carefully. At the back of the shop there was a wall of bees.... Yes you read it right.... a WALL OF BEES making the honey. Hannah and I managed to locate the queen with a little help from the shop assistant. I purchased some Pohutukawa (a NZ tree that has lots of red flowers on it at Christmas) honey and considered getting some honeycomb too. o
After the excitement of the Honey Centre, we went on to a little place called Warkworth which reminded me of a sleepy British seaside resort that would come alive during the summer. It was really quiet when we went though so the queues were pretty small. I bought a chicken, spinach and feta pie and then followed it with a rhubarb slice and pot of tea.
We then travelled to Mahurangi (a place I have been to before) and then on to a small township called Puhoi. Puhoi has a great cheese shop and Hannah and I spent a phenomenal amount of time tasting all the cheeses (in all fairness we did actually buy some) and then moved over to the ice-cream counter and did some more tasting. We bought Puhoi triple cream brie, Puhoi goats cheese and some Puhoi cheddar. I also had a berry fruits (yes I did choose it purely because of the name) sorbet ice-cream cone.
We arrived back in Auckland at about 5.30pm, pretty exhausted, but ready to eat more cheese. Hannah put together a delicious cheeseboard while I went to the supermarket and bought some crackers and pickles to add to our collection. We then stuffed our faces while watching tv and then went to bed. A fantastic day :)
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