What on earth are Kumara Pies and Snapper Sliders?
Day 4 - Saturday
Waking up to Alpacas gazing at you, makes for an interesting start to the day. The boys clearly thought that our presence meant treats and hovered expectantly, batting their eyelids at us and posing for the camera.
Rachel delivered another yummy breakfast - warm croissants, pastries and a Red berry smoothie along with some great advice for our journey to our next destination.
She suggested an alternative route towards the end of the journey, involving a bendy coastal road and a ferry, which was "far more scenic and interesting than the main highway". Well so far, everything we had seen, had been scenic and interesting, so we were quite keen to see what level of stunningness this route would bring. The only tiny fly in the ointment was that having checked out the topography on Google, I wasn't sure I was ready for a route that had bendy and coastal in the same sentence, just yet. I know I am going to have to face my shocking fear of roads with drops at some point, but hadn't quite prepared myself mentally for the challenge. As it was we got so caught up in her other brilliant suggestion, we ran out of time and took the direct route ( still very high on the stunning- o - meter)
So her other recommendation was to stop about half way to Paihia, and take a small detour, for a smoked fish and kumara pie. Despite not having the faintest clue what kumara was, we were game for anything.
We got precise directions:- turn off highway 1 at Waipu, go past the fire station, ignore the smart bakery on your right - the one you want is the scruffy one on the left just past the second hand shop.
This is exactly why I like creating my own itinerary and doing all the booking myself. You get to meet lovely people who are full of great suggestions that take you off the beaten track. You also get to see and experience things you would most certainly miss if you were on an organised tour.
Waipu is tiny little town that looks quite insignificant on the map, so without Rachel's insider knowledge, we would have sailed by, never knowing what we had missed.
We parked in the Waipu museum car park. Don't you just love the fact that this tiny place, with just 1500 inhabitants has it's own museum! It also has a rather wonderful museum gift shop, but more about that later.
A short stroll down the tiny high street, past the second hand shop which clearly prefers the rather grander title of Antiques and Curios ( not sure who they are trying to kid) and we arrived at the bakery.
It was definitely scruffy, but had an air of "we know our pies are bloody fantastic, so if you don't like the decor- sod off" about it. It actually reminded me of the traditional Pie & Mash shops in places like Deptford and Rotherhithe - very basic with tiled walls and sawdust on the floor ( the sawdust may not be true - just my childhood memories playing tricks on me) but you get the picture. As an aside, someone opened a Pie and Mash shop in Bromley once and tried to take it upmarket. They had clearly misunderstood the whole concept and my Mum and Auntie (who were Pie & Mash connoisseurs) declared it - rubbish!! - It failed miserably.
This bakery however, judging by the numbers of people going in and out, (only 1500 inhabitants remember) is successful because of the food and the scruffiness is just part of it's charm.
There were pies as far as the eye could see, all clearly home baked with interesting and rather unusual combinations of ingredients. We stuck with Rachel's recommendation and ordered 2 smoked fish and kumara pies, 2 cheesy stick things and a couple of fizzy drinks. That came to 14 NZD which seemed ridiculously cheap compared with the going rate for food in general. We collected knives forks and serviettes, (well I say serviettes - actually it was kitchen roll, but we now realise that is fairly standard practice in many establishments) and took our pies to the rickety metal table outside on the pavement.
As we were sitting outside enjoying our delicious pies, we watched the world go by.
The first thing we noticed is that the everyone here, dresses according to exactly how they feel. There is no accounting for the weather, the season, or the time of day. So we saw people wrapped up in jumpers & coats, others wearing shorts and teeshirts, some beachwear, the odd smart suit and one girl who looked like she was heading off to a disco, in a see through top and a mini skirt that my old Dad would have described as a pelmet.
We noticed 2 small children walking along with bare feet, then a couple more without shoes, then a guy got out of his truck - also no shoes. Given how quickly the weather can change from bright sunshine to pouring rain, this seemed a bit of a risky strategy and my inner “Brit” couldn’t help but be concerned about what they may be stepping in on the pavement; but one thing you have to acknowledge about New Zealand - everywhere is spotless.
I’m not sure if this casual approach to footwear is a long standing tradition or if, since New Zealand became synonymous with Lord of the Rings, everyone is embracing their inner Hobbit. Either way, It’s very cool!
Once we had finished our food, Lottie needed a loo and I needed a map.
Since landing in Auckland, I had been searching - unsuccessfully, for a nice detailed road map. The mapping/directions function on my phone was doing a grand job of getting us from A to B, but (and this might seem strange to those of you, who know how much I love technology) I like a good old fashioned map. I like to be able to see at a glance, what is up ahead and what you are passing in the way of lakes, rivers, landmarks, places of note etc. and whether there are interesting little detours you could take that won’t take you miles out of your way.
I hadn’t been able to get one at the airport or at the couple of places we had visited so far, but felt there was a good chance this little town might have one.
Our “bakery” didn’t offer facilities, but there was a little petrol station up the road, so we figured there was a good chance that it might satisfy both our needs - a loo and a map.
They didn’t have either, but everyone here is so friendly, they must be taught from birth to offer helpful advice and suggestions. So the lady behind the counter gave us a huge smile, apologised profusely for not having what we wanted and pointed Lottie at the cafe over the road (This was the smart one Rachel had referred to) and me to the post office or Museum gift shop.
Slightly anxious about using a cafe’s toilet without actually spending any money, Lottie asked if she could possibly use their facilities and promised she would come back and buy something. The girl gave her a quizzical look, said “of course”, and seemed genuinely surprised that Lottie was even bothering to ask. However, once again, our British sense of fair play was in full force so we stayed and had a coffee anyway.
Now for the map; and our first stop was the post office. It was like stepping back in time. No glossy counters, flashing signs, barriers to force orderly queues, or robotic voices telling you “counter number 3 please”. Just a hotch potch of random stuff all over the place with no logic to the layout of the shop or to the things they were selling.
I felt optimistic, but quickly realised that with the chaotic nature of the place, even if they had one, I didn’t have a hope in hell of finding it.
The lady behind the counter was (and you’ve guessed it) super helpful and friendly. In response to my enquiry, we had a nice little chat about the benefits of a map on actual paper and she said “yes, she was pretty sure they had one here somewhere”. She started hunting through drawers and cupboards, then wandered around the shop randomly pulling things out and lifting others, in search of the elusive map. After 5 minutes of searching ( a bit of a queue was forming - but no one seemed bothered) she finally found it, in a drawer under the counter. It was a proper New Zealand road atlas, clearly old and a bit tatty around the edges, but I honestly didn’t care, I was just grateful that keeping all the other people waiting while she searched, hadn’t been in vain. Sadly, upon closer inspection, she announced “oh no, I can’t sell you this one - it’s Bill’s copy”, (we never found out who Bill was). However, clearly determined, that I leave the shop entirely satisfied, she told me to have a look through it and pick out the pages I wanted, so she could photocopy them for me.
It was a big book - probably too big for a standard copy machine and had the whole of the New Zealand road system in considerable detail on it’s many many pages.
We are travelling from the top of the North Island, right down to bottom of the South Island - in other words, pretty much all of it, so can you imagine, how much time and paper would have been involved!
I said that it was extremely kind of her to offer, but we did need rather a lot of it, so it would be better if we continue the search elsewhere. If she (and the rest of the waiting customers) were secretly relieved to be let off the hook, they didn’t show it. They all just waved us goodbye and with massive warm smiles, wished us luck in our search.
Our next port of call - The museum gift shop ,was a dangerous place to be. It was full of enticing, sparkly, beautiful things, so once again, we spent far more time in there than was planned.
The lady behind the counter had clearly paid a lot of attention in her “how to be helpful, friendly and give great customer service" classes. So before I had even got around to asking about the map, she had extracted my life history and knew our full New Zealand itinerary.
She didn’t have a road atlas but could offer me free AA fold out maps of the North and South Island. I had already picked up these maps at the car hire place and discovered that they were no use at all. Fine if you just want to see the main highways, but hopelessly lacking in the sort of detail I wanted.
I consider escaping from that Aladdin’s cave without spending any money, a major achievement, so it was back to Bertha and on our way again.
After all the pie eating, loo searching and the quest for the map, we were running seriously behind schedule, so decided to forego any further detours and head straight up Highway 1 to Paihia.
More breathtaking scenery, interesting place names and traffic free roads.
As we neared the end of our journey there were a couple of, what I will call “poo in the pants” sections of road. These are roads that are bendy, not very wide, have a sheer drop on one side and have either no barrier or a little fence that wouldn’t stop a bicycle let alone a car. I don’t do well on roads like these, but aware that this might be a bit of a problem in a very hilly country, I had done some preparation before I left home. I had listened to a self hypnosis tape every day for a couple of weeks and learned how to do “tapping”, which is a technique that is supposed help you overcome your fears.
I wouldn’t say either of these methods gave me a 100% success rate, but there was a definite improvement. I didn’t screech loudly in Lottie’s ear, I didn’t hyperventilate, I didn't beg her to stop the car so I could get out and walk and I definitely didn’t poo my pants - just peed a little bit.
As I’ve already said, Lottie is an amazing driver and incredibly patient. Being fully aware of my phobia, she slowed right down on the scary bits and never once tutted at my twitching or pushed me away when I leaned into her to get away from the drop.
As the Bay of Islands, slowly came into view, it took our breathe away. Words cannot describe the beauty and magnificence of this place. What we both find hilarious, is every time we mention how stunning it is, we are told “Ah - just wait until you get to the South Island - now that’s really beautiful”
On arrival at Allview Lodge, our home for the next 3 nights, we were met by Theo. Although there were stairs down to our apartment, once he caught sight of all our luggage, he recommended using the lift. He rattled off the instructions (which seemed disproportionately complicated for something so simple) and down we went. Even though we had taken a lift down to our apartment, we were still very high up and despite the lounge, bathroom and 2 bedrooms being lovely, the thing that rendered us speechless was the view.
The apartment was built around a curve on the cliff and had floor to ceiling glass doors everywhere, which led out onto a wrap around terrace overlooking the bay and the beach below. I would have been perfectly happy spending our three days there, just sat outside staring at the view, but true to form, I had already planned an action packed few days.
Despite being a little way out of town, we were keen to walk rather than keep dragging Bertha up and down the hills and Theo helpfully suggested the best way was to take the stairs down to the beach, go along to the end, over the rocks and round the cliff. This, he assured us, would only take about 10 minutes as long as the tide was low. For about an hour either side of high tide, the sea covered the rocks, cutting off the route, so we just had to be careful and keep an eye on the tide times. Simple enough you would have thought - however, for us, not so much. More about that later!!!
Our first organised trip in Paihia was a cruise around the bay on a sailing catamaran, to include swimming with wild Dolphins. People who know me well, will be aware that I am completely anti captivity and strongly disapprove of Dolphin shows, swim with Dolphin programs or in fact any type of activity that involves them being held against their will, and trained to perform tricks and stunts
I was happy to book this trip because they made it absolutely clear that getting in the water with the Dolphins would only happen if certain conditions were met. So if there were babies or juveniles in the pod, or the dolphins were resting or feeding, then we wouldn’t be allowed in the water. Also, if the dolphins didn’t stick around, we wouldn’t be chasing them - In other words, we would only be able to swim on the Dolphin’s terms, which for me was perfect.
The trip also included some snorkelling and a BBQ on the beach on one of the Islands, so even if the Dolphin swim didn’t happen, there was still plenty to look forward to.
Anyway, On Friday evening, I had received an Email from the company, saying that the weather forecast, for Sunday looked very dodgy and they weren’t sure whether the trip would go ahead. They had asked me to call them on Saturday to check the situation and so once we were settled in our lovely apartment, that was the first thing I did. Vanessa, from the company, was very apologetic, but explained that strong winds and thunderstorms, didn’t make for a lovely relaxing trip, if you are in a sailing vessel, so they had cancelled it. She suggested I call again on Sunday, to see if the weather forecast for Monday was better. We were disappointed, but not too worried as we felt sure that we would get to do the trip before we left.
Determined to make the best of things, we headed into town to get something to eat. We had, as instructed, checked on the tides and as high tide had been at midday, we knew we were good to go. I don’t know how, but I had somehow got it into my head that when Theo said “over the rocks”, he meant a nice solid proper pathway that had rocks underneath it. - like the ones you often see on breakwaters. I certainly wasn’t prepared ( and neither was my footwear) for leaping from one slippery wet wobbly rock to another ( and that was at low tide).
Suffice to say it took us a lot longer than 10 minutes and I spent most of it clinging to Lottie trying desperately to keep my balance and not fall into a rock pool.
We were both so relieved to have made it to the end and on to dry land, that I don’t think either of us considered how we were going to get back, bearing in mind that it would be 1. pitch Black and 2. high tide again.
Anyway, with all of those small problems still hours away, we explored the little town ( I’m sure New Zealand must have some large towns, but apart from Auckland, we hadn’t spotted any yet).
At the front of the wharf was a bright Blue upright piano, just sitting there minding it’s own business.
It was horribly out of tune and had keys missing, but Lottie gave it a go anyway and as she started playing, a crowd of small children gathered around her. I was rather hoping she would burst into song, but didn’t push it - she’s on holiday after all!
We found a lovely bar/restaurant on a huge deck that went out over the bay, checked out the menu, which looked very interesting and decide to give it a go.
We opted for a table at the far end, right out over the water, which seemed perfect until it started to get dark and the temperature turned very chilly almost instantaneously. I asked if I could smoke but despite being in the open air and completely surrounded by water - apparently not, because the deck was made of wood. No worries - I just trotted back to the pavement when I needed to smoke.
As I walked out of the restaurant for my first cigarette, I noticed a group of people sitting at the squishy sofa end of the deck (by the 2 outside heaters) all snuggled under fluffy blankets. I decided they must be locals, who realise how quickly the temperature drops and so bring blankets out with them. I imagined the scene at home. “Have you got everything dear?” “yup, I’ve got my phone, my keys, my wallet and my blanket”.
When I got back to the table, Lottie was wrapped in a big blanket as well and there was a nice soft Red one waiting over my chair. The restaurant provided them for everyone - what a brilliant idea. So easy and so simple, but one more example of the incredible customer service provided by just about everywhere here.
We ordered some wine (much closer to UK prices than Spanish ones) and as we were on foot, Lottie had a couple of glasses as well, then we chose our food.
Being a non-meat eater in this country is a doddle, as they have, in many cases, more fish and veggie options than meat. So for starters we chose to share a salt & pepper squid (only here they were a little more upmarket, so it was called Calamari) and Snapper Sliders. We knew what a snapper was, but hadn’t a clue about the slider bit, so asked the charming, smiley waite
They turned out to be small Snapper filets in little buns with rocket and Japanese Mayonnaise and were absolutely, flipping delicious. We had market fish of the day for our mains, again beautifully presented and yummy, but it was the sliders that were the star of the meal.
We had our coffee (no room for desert) on the squishy sofas all wrapped up in our blankets and felt truly relaxed. As we started to think about heading home, it suddenly occurred to us, that we had no idea how we were going to get back. It was now 11pm and almost high tide, so clambering over rocks, in the dark, that may or may not be covered in water, didn’t seem like a great idea. We could of course, walk back the road way, but we guessed it would all be uphill and with all the bends in the road, would mean walking twice as far. So we asked our waiter to order us a taxi.
A 12 seater cab arrived, which seemed a little excessive for just the 2 of us, but as we were starting to discover, New Zealand has it’s own way of doing things. As we got in, the driver (who hadn’t got the memo about always smiling and being super friendly - turns out he was originally from London, there you go then!) asked where we were going and promptly got out of the cab. He hovered outside for a bit until a man ran over and asked if there was room for 5 more. Apparently, we were all going in the same general direction up the hill, so the man ran back to the restaurant to collect the rest of his party. Once everyone was in, the driver set off and dropped us as close to our place as he could (our road was a dead end with no turning space unless you had a parking spot). The cost of taxi’s seems to vary dramatically across the world, e.g. for a journey of 1 - 2 Km I’ve paid less than a pound in Argentina and 23 quid in Italy, so I had no idea what to expect. But the 7 Dollars he charged, seemed very reasonable, even if we did have to walk the last few hundred meters.
Back in our apartment, we stood outside on our terrace for a bit admiring the night sky - so much more spectacular with no light pollution, then had yet another early night.