Z-ventures: THE REST OF THE STORY...(or in this case, the rest of the lost blog)...

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

THE REST OF THE STORY...(or in this case, the rest of the lost blog)...

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 2011 – ONEROA PUBLIC LIBRARY – So here is my recreated blog for your amusement…blah, blah, blah…. J

Okay, so you know about the St. Pat’s Day activities and then the day in honor of Christchurch….

So we decided to go and walk the “track” over to Mudbrick Vineyard on Saturday (they have tracks all over NZ—some long and some short and they are all over this island, too). The day is sunny and warm and we walk around Surfdale Beach along the Esplanade—the tide is very low:

Then around the point to Blackpool Beach and I see the first SUVs that I have ever seen driven out to boats (cuz of the lowtide): J

Then past the Piritahi Marae (the Maori sacred grounds):

Past some boats on shore:

And an old, landmark rusted scow:

Up and up and up we go along the track and I turn and look back at the view:

We finally are on the other side of the mountain (I swear we hiked uphill a mile but it was more like a half mile!) and there is a beautiful olive tree orchard with ripening olives (I had only seen green ones so far) so we each pick and eat a black one--YUCK—they are bitter & need processing to taste like real olives! But at least I have seen ripe olives on the tree now:

On we go and look at the views as we hoof it towards Mudbrick—getting thirsty and hungry:

Only to walk into the cellar store and find out that they are closing for a wedding party…damn, I am grousing about the hour long, hot walk so the nice young man gives us each a small glass of pinot gris (me) and chardonnay (Geoff) and they were great but just made us want more. The woman in the shop said to walk out their entrance and turn left—and we would find another vineyard called “Jurassic Ridge” so we did—saw a beautiful view of Auckland in the distance:

But our bad luck continued and it was closed...so we walked (nearly another mile)into Oneroa, went to Ricky’s and Geoff had some good beer and I had a cider and then we took the bus back to the cottage. Later we salvaged the day by popping corn and watching a funny movie about the 1960s radio pirates called “The Boat that Rocked”—it was great!

Luckily Sunday dawned sunny and bright so we headed (via bus) out to Onetangi Beach. We met Sherman & Chong who were visiting from Malaysia at the bus stop and pointed out some good vineyards to visit while on Waiheke. We went to “salt” along the beach:

Had some fabulous oysters (pic didn’t turn out!) and some good wine:

Listened to Briar Ross Trio who played and sang some great jazz:

Then back on the bus and after a stop for a few provisions we were back in Surfdale in time for the Sunday jam session at Malones Irish Pub—our LAST one here on Waiheke. Manu Pratt and his son, Naki, are great musicians and this was, in my opinion, the best jam session yet (and it was hard to beat the others we went to)—here they are doing what they do best:

The music ends around 9:30 PM but we stayed until nearly 11 PM so Geoff and Manu could talk about music and musicians they both know or have met. It was interesting to me to listen to them.

So ends another week. We have a few things to get done this week but I this will, most likely be my last blog post and pictures from Waiheke Island. I do plan to write about the things I loved about NZ at some point...we'll have to see when and where I get that done In the meantime, as the song goes, we are homeward bound…….