Author: richwest3

December 24, 2012

We’ve been trying to get a little exercise.  There are some nice hills to walk up and down near our boat.  The scenery’s not bad either!

(December 6, 2012 – March 6, 2013)

Our daily routine in Opua was pretty simple. In the tropics we were up at 6 AM because that’s when the sun came up; then we’d head out to the cockpit to drink our morning coffee. Here, we’d wake up at 8 because sunrise wasn’t until about 7:30 (with long days – the sun not setting until 9:30 or so). The combination of cool mornings and being in a marina kept us below decks, reading and working on the computer.

We’d have breakfast on the boat, then venture out to have a cup New Zealand coffee from the Marina Cafe or Opua Store. Rich spent a lot of time at Cater Marine and figuring out how best to approach some of our boat projects. I spent a lot of time doing domestic chores and figuring out how best to approach our sightseeing excursions.

We’d usually end up in one of the two nearby towns for lunch, often accompanied by a shopping errand (grocery store, hardware store, Target-like store, electronics store, ATM visit for previous stores, gas station, etc.) Then it was back to Opua for miscellaneous boat work, computer work, showers, dinner on the boat, and enjoying TV. We may be in New Zealand, but we’re keeping up with our favorite TV shows thanks to the internet.

We’d generally get some walking in during the day, at least to the General Store and out to the end the wharf. When we were feeling ambitious we’d walk in the hills. (For all the ice cream we were eating we should have been ambitious more often.)

Once a week or so, we’d take a few hours to do some sightseeing.  Once a month or so we’d take a small road trip.  And every Sunday we’d head to the farmer’s market in Kerikeri.  In some ways life here wasn’t so different than our lives back in the US.  -Cyndi

December, 2012

We set on in the gray of yesterday to explore, our sights set on piloting our Audi land-yacht to Whangaroa.  Lou stopped us on the way out the parking lot and told us if we were going that far, we should go a little farther to Mangonui for the famous fish and chips.  We did.

The fish and chips were really good.  They come wrapped in lots of newsprint.  You have to buy the tarter sauce and ketchup (they call it tomato sauce here) separately.  It turns out we weren’t the only ones who liked the fish…

 

The fun didn’t last long as Ms. Scrooge came over and said, “We don’t feed the birds here!” She may not but apparently we do!  We grudgingly stopped and it was probably a good thing as the seagulls were getting a bit aggressive, almost flying in the open window in front of us. -Rich

 

December 2012 – May 2013

Our love affair with New Zealand’s ice cream actually began at an ice cream shop in Samoa, where we sampled the famous Hokey Pokey flavor (vanilla with bits of honeycomb toffee) in the Tip Top brand of ice cream. This was also the first ice cream we had after arriving in New Zealand.

Since then, our ice cream experience has only gotten better. As it turns out, in a country full of specialty ice creams, Tip Top is far from the best – just the average supermarket brand (and pretty much every brand makes the hokey pokey flavor). In fact we’ve gotten to be ice cream snobs: “Look, they have ice cream! Never mind, it’s only Tip Top.”

We do have some favorites. Kapiti is very good, sold in ice cream shops and supermarkets, and is like the Haagen Daz of New Zealand. Then there is Much Moore, which we found at a chocolate shop in Whangarei, which I love because of the whipped-like texture. Our favorite ice cream in Northland by far is Movenpick, which is actually a Swiss ice cream. It has a thick, creamy, gelato-like texture and rich flavor. They have several locations in New Zealand and locations throughout the world.  They are pretty much everywhere except the United States! It was there for awhile until some legal issues made them pull out. That’s a shame, and I hope it returns soon.

There is another great ice cream here that is more a method than a brand. It’s a machine where they put in fresh fruit and vanilla ice cream and it blends it all together into a soft-serve-like texture. We actually first had this in Moorea, then Samoa, and now New Zealand. I cannot imagine they don’t have these machines in the States! If you see one, try it!

Movenpick remained our favorite ice cream until the day we went to Waiheke Island near Auckland. There, we went to a coffee house that served a special, hand-packed ice cream made in Auckland called Kohu Road. We tried the dark chocolate and salted caramel flavors and came to the same conclusion: this is the best ice cream we’ve ever had.

In conclusion, if you are reading this in the United States, we recommend:

1.  Keep an eye out for the Hokey Pokey flavor of ice cream.  I think Ben and Jerry’s might have made it for awhile and maybe they will again.

2.  Keep an eye out for Movenpick Swiss Ice Cream shops: I’m sure they’ll be back.

3.  If you see someone has a Flavorama machine or something similar, give it a try!  It’s fabulous.

And if you’re ever in Auckland or Waiheke Island, make sure to try the Kohu Road! –Cyndi

 

January – March 2013

There’s a chocolate shop and “factory” just outside Kerikeri called Makana Confections. In the shop, you can observe the confections being made through the large glass windows. Most visitors seem to have far less interest in the confection-making process than in the confection-sampling process at the counter.

This place seemed like touristy thing and wasn’t on the must-do list for Kerikeri, but we thought it might be nice to try the free samples and pulled in.  One taste of the macadamia butter toffee and the pinot noir truffles and we realized this chocolate is special.  I would compare it to See’s back in the US, but with a much smaller selection and higher prices. Still, after sampling it we had to buy some.  We got the lecture about making sure to finish it by the expiration date.  This was not a problem.

We’ve returned a few more times and tasted a few other things, but we always came back to our favorites: the butter toffee and the densely chocolate pinot-noir truffles.  If you’re in the area, definitely stop in to try a sample but be warned: if you try, you will want to buy. -Cyndi