South Island

South Island is one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited in my life. We drove from Auckland to Wellington caught a ferry the next day to Picton, drove to Nelson Abel Tasman, then to Fran Josef, to Wanaka, Queenstown, Te Anau, Milford, Bluff, Dunedin, Lake Tekapo, Christchurch, Westport, Kaikoura and back to Picton to take the ferry back to Wellington.

The drive all over South Island is just magnificent with the views of snowcap mountains everywhere and beautiful clear blue lakes and amazing greenery and dessert looking mountains.

Beautiful sky and sea at Marahau Abel Tasman, a great place to kayak!


The journey in the car:








Throughout the journey there were many signs by the roads reminding drivers to drive safely. I always enjoy reading them as they can be very creative like this:


At the Glaciers in Fran Josef:


One of my fav places was wanaka. It has a beautiful lake, quiet and I enjoyed their coffee and blueberry cream cheese scone I bought from one of their cafes!


Lake Tekapo where the water was soooooo blue it was unbelievable!


At Kaikoura we were told to try their crayfish by the side of the road on the way to the seal colony. There were 2 so we weren't sure of which was the nicer one but stopped by one that we saw. It was expensive and so delicious!


After eating crayfish we went to see seals - they were so smelly!


So, if there is one place to go back to I'll definately return to the south island! It's like another part of the world compared to the North!

Beauty

Last weekend we went on our usual weekend road trips and tried out a new route. We headed off to Kaiaua which is about 1 hr away from Auckland. We went on this adventure to find this fish and chips place that my workmate suggested. We waited for nearly 30 minutes for them! And guess what? It was just alright…Anyway, in all the hunt for good fish and chips in NZ, during the ride I am always amazed and in awe of the beautiful blue skies, the placement of the trees with the green mountains behind them and the cows all minding their own business. I hear myself saying again “wow look at that it’s so beautiful!” I got reminded of how God’s beauty is like and how each time we see his beauty and experience his love I always have this grin on my face and think wow God thank you, you’re so beautiful and so wow! We can see the same scenery or drive the same route and be gumstruck by the beauty of what we see, the splashes of colours that makes that perfect picture. It is the same with God and how we can be in his presence and just be in awe of his beauty and who he is.


Btw, if you ever want to try something new, you should definitely go to this fish and chips shop and if it’s a really sunny day you’ll see many motorists in their hard out motorbiker suits. Quite interesting.

Driving all the way to THE MOUNT just to have afternoon tea!

On our one day road trip to the Mount just to have a drive away, we finally arrive at the Mount and stopped at this cafe by the beach called :


We didn't know which cafe to stop at for afternoon tea and because this had the most people we decided to be swayed by the crowd.

This cafe served the most interesting sides with their hot chocolate. Normally when you order a hot chocolate it will be accompanied by marshmallows and if you're lucky you'll get a chocolate fish. Some cafes like Benedictions or Zarbo gives you a little brownie or cookie at the side. At this cafe however, they gave me a chocolate bar, jaffa and marshmallows!! Talk about chocolate overload!: Their drink was alright but maybe bcause they use organic ingredients it does taste different


I wanted something sweet, they had date scones, blueberry scones and this date loaf that was calling out my name. I thought how boring I am always order the same thing so I decided to order this orange poppyseed cake....oh my goodness I had one bite of it and I couldnt go further. It was very orange-gy? It was too strong for my liking...should have stuck to my usual!!


Marcus was smart, he ordered this kumara cashew soup and it tasted like curry. Not that authentic but it's better than the cake:


Anyway it's always good to go for a day trip and just have a nice time eating somewhere new...lol

Pancakes for a lazy day

During waitangi weekend we went to attempt tongoriro crossing but due to the wierd weather we decided to chill out at the bach instead..we stayed at a bach in turangi that Liz booked from her work and we had a great time just relaxing.

One of my favourite breakfast/brunch is pancakes and berries or yummy golden syrup on top! We decided to make our own pancakes so Liz the cook made up the pancake mix that you can simply buy from supermarkets and made us pancakes!


I bought strawberries in a can and peaches to eat with the pancakes and instead of using golden syrup we used honey instead.



Does it look like the ones in the cafe??? Except I would have decorated it with icing and more fruits and syrup but I didn't want to overdo it for the picture =)

It's really easy to make these pancakes and to indulge in them without going to cafes but it's nicer if there were more people to enjoy it with so that you can make it look nice and enjoy looking at the faces of delight and satisfaction!

On the way back we stopped by Tirau just to have my scone. Tirau is a nice little stopover on the way to Taupo with many little cafes and unquie shops selling jewelleries, gifts, and special New Zealand items. I had to go back there because I enjoyed it the last time we stopped by I had the date scone but my friend Hui Cheng had the plain scone and had cream and jam with it. I tried hers and was like "hmmm yum nice with cream and jam" and thought have to order it nxt time. So, we came all the way here and some how this time it just didn't taste the same. I don't think i'll stopped by here again.


However, it wont put me off my love for scones!

Paihia

If you ever think about visiting Paihia, there isn't many places to eat as it is a small town. So if you stay there for a few days or go there quite often you'll end up eating at the same places all the time. We often eat out at the fish and chip shop but because it was our anniversary we decided to try 35 Degrees South Aqaurium Restaurant which is beautifully located in the heart of Paihia over the water and you won't miss it. It provides a unique dining experience over the water with a central 60 000 litre salt water aquarium filled with local fish.


The food is good, with the serving size quite small for the price it is at:


Paihia is a great place for culture, fine dining, adverture, and beaches. It is definately one of my favourite places to visit which is not too far to drive to.

35 Degrees South Aqaurium

Location:
69 Marsden Road
Paihia, Northland 0200
(09) 402 6281
Open daily: 7.30am-11pm

Off road biking

Today Marcus and I decided to go off road biking because ever since Marc got his new road bike I've always been hassling him on how I want to join him. So, we decided to do something we both haven't done before and went off road biking!!!

I've never done anything in my life that is so tiring except for a 3 day tramp a few years back! The cost was 25 bucks for the bike hire and for entry fee. Every hour we did after was another few bucks. Many people brought their own bikes so this was actually a very enjoyable cheap saturday adventure for anyone that has thier own bikes and want fun.

Ok, first of all I didn't know that I had to change gear everytime I go up the hill and down the hill so basically for the first part of the 10 km route I had to get off my bike everytime I went up the hill because the bike could not move! I had to get off the bike everytime a steep hill approaches me because I was a chicken and I didn't want to fall off the bike! Half way through the journey my confidence grew and Marc changed my gear so that I didnt have to touch it at all but go all the way! I enjoyed it so much after that but still hassling Marc how long till we reach the end! It took us about 2 hours to finish that route and poor Marc had to go slowly to make sure I was alright!














It was a fun and new experience for me, something I thought we should do because life is too short and we just need to get out there and do something new!Check out thier website http://www.bikepark.co.nz/
















After biking, we went to Muriwai Beach and had fish and chips watching the sunset in the car because it was too windy to sit outside!

Easter Weekend

Easter we went away to Hahei with a few Life members.
We started off a Macdonalds for breakky and headed off to Hahei stopping for Lunch at this cafe.




Went to Hahei and the holiday park that we normally tent at was packed so we went to another one at Cooks beach which was further away from the beach but not as crowded.


It was a good one night trip!

Eggs

I just felt like sharing my love for eggs especially the ones I get for brunch at cafes.

I love eggs with toast and the eggs has to be either scrambled or poached and drizzled with hollandaise or with sweet chilli sauce.

The toast has to be nice toast not burnt or hard, but just right and crunchy. I love my eggs with smoked salmon and cream cheese yum yum....I could have it for breakfast everyday if I had the time to make them! And I love having it on a sunny day outside at a cafe.

Below are some pictures of a few eggs I've had and how differently they are served at different places...

This was egg benedict at Pahia during my 1 year anniversary.

Below was egg benedicts at a cafe and in between the eggs and the salmon was a piece of hash brown. It was crunchy and tasted nice with the eggs and salmon to my surprise

The eggs below was not as runny as the ones I've had. I love my yolk abit runny and when I cut it the yoke has to run out.....this was at Blue Mountains Sydney at one of the cafes
















And below is scramble eggs with nicely done toast at Hahei beach where I was proposed to. The eggs were really yellow though like they added food colouring or something but otherwise it was scrumptious!