Someone somewhere in the world must have their birthday on the 3rd March but it certainly is not Wendy, oh no, she has nothing to celebrate at all. However, it is Opposable Thumbs Day and that, we believe, is sufficient opportunity for a party on the 3rd March each year. After New Plymouth what do we do? As we were heading north it was back to Auckland for a night in a seriously, and I mean a seriously, upmarket hotel with dinner included of course.
Now, for some weird reason the hotel got confused and seemed to think, silly things, that it was Wendy’s birthday. I have no idea who would have told them that. So we were royally upgraded to a suite, free use of the spa, breakfast thrown-in, free use of the executive lounge and a bottle of bubbly. The room itself was luxurious and the bubbly excellent:
We did think about using the spa and the swimming pool but decided that they would involve undressing and physical exertion (or do I mean undressing and then more physical exertion?) so repaired to the executive lounge for drinks and canapés, as one does. The dinner was right up Wendy’s street. The restaurant is called eight because it features 8 kitchens including seafood, Indian, Italian, American, Japanese, Chinese and I didn’t get to the other two.
There was a birthday cake and then the best surprise ever. One of the waitresses said that she could ask her mate in the kitchen for one of his “specials”. [Now, at this point I am so tempted, as I know you are, to go down the Kenneth Williams road e.g. “but I said we would like to finish dinner first” etc etc, but I won’t]. We immediately both agreed and she returned a few minutes later with … chocolate naan! [I know, I know, it gets ever more tempting..].
It was the most delicious thing in the world and should only be eaten on birthdays. From now on.
The next morning we had an adventure in Auckland getting the screen on Wendy’s phone repaired (and she complains that I don’t get her anything special for her birthday!) and then headed ever north stopping only at the most excitingly avant garde and kitsch public toilets imaginable at a place called Kawakawa. I can only imagine the state of the previous public toilets if an eccentric and reclusive Austrian Eco Architect called Friedensreich Hundertwasser thought the only thing he could do to help was to rebuild them.
Anyhow, as you can see they are a riot. They were completed in 1998 with the help of the community and they are now a tourist landmark. Quite rightly I am sure you will agree.
And so on to the little ferry to take us to the Bay Of Islands where the whole New Zealand story began and where our story will end.
Perhaps.
To Middle Earth and Beyond 