This post is from ages ago but it never got published because I got caught up in school and stuff. This is from waaaayyyyy back in April. April 14-22 to be precise
I thought that I would make my life really easy (not) so while working extra on school holidays and having Ariel (one of my best friends) visit, I decided to throw in a spring triathlon. The school holidays were busy. It was my school holiday from uni as well as the kids school holiday from their school.
Cheese tasting on our wine tour |
On Wednesday we took the kids to an indoor play ground. Her old host family met us there. Then she hung out with them for a while (boo to sharing my best friend!).
One of the days she was here (Thursday I think) we went on a wine tour with NZWinePro. The business owner was our tour guide. His name is John. He is an extremely chatty and slightly eccentric man. Ariel and I can talk A LOT and some how or another he managed to out talk us by himself. It was almost unheard of. We started off in the city and he took us north to Matakana. We went to Phoui artisan cheese makers. We got to taste all of the cheese. I brought some back for a party were were having the next night at the house. John has a fridge that runs off the battery in his car which was pretty cool.
Next we went to the Mahurangi River winery. The view from the restaurant/tasting room was amazing. I was so impressed by how lovely it looked. The owner there did our wine tasting. John hadn't brought clients to this venue for a while because of the owner but thought he could give it another go. The owner/wine maker's name is Gary. He and his partner bought it and the dairy farm next door and run both. Gary is a bit socially awkward. I didn't think his wine was especially good either. He had the sweetest pinkest rose I have ever tasted. It looked very similar to cough syrup and tasted about the same. It did get better as we went through the list though and the view was well worth the drive.
Lovely view from the first vineyard |
We were supposed to go to another place near Matakanabut because of the season lots of the tasting rooms were closed. We did have a lovely drive around for a while before deciding to go to a tasting room in Ponsonby instead. On the way back to the city we stopped at OBO ice cream.
We went to Foxes Island tasting room in Ponsonby. It had quite good wine. After our tasting we decided to get food from the Argentinian BBQ place in Ponsonby Central. It is a tiny little restaurant so we had to wait which was fine cause we wandered up and down Ponsonby road looking in shop windows. Nothing was open because it was too late but it was fun. They do really really really good meats with a special sauce and salad. Ariel got chicken and I got steak. Ariel always gets the guys to teach us Spanish which is fun. After dinner we went to the Little Easy. I really like the Little Easy and almost always go there with Ariel. We shockingly got another glass of wine while we decided what we wanted to do with our night. Ariel said she didn’t want to go dancing so we made it to city center and as we were waiting ot get onto the bus she changed her mind so we went to Everybody’s to dance. However it was like 8pm which is a bit too early for dancing. So we sat and chatted and waited and waited but no one was dancing. After a bit we thought we would try somewhere else so we went to Snap Dragon. Snap Dragon is usually quite busy. They tend to have DJ’s Thursday through Sunday and stuff but the Thursday we were there nothing. We asked the bartender to make us margaritas which he really struggled to do. He was new and very nervous. We hung out at Snap Dragon until 11 and it was dead so we decided to go home. We got to the bus stop and then realised we had left our cheese in the Snap Dragon fridge so had to trek back to get it and then go and get on the bus. There was lots of walking and wine but a sever lack of dancing.
Lunch at Plume |
Saturday Ariel and I slept in and had a lazy day. She left around dinner to go to her host Dad’s 30th birthday party and I went home to baby sit/get ready for my triathlon/go to bed early!!!
Sunday morning I had to get up around 4:30 to get in the car and down to the race with my friend Fiona. We were some of the very few people on the road and got pulled over for speeding. Luckily the officer was really nice and let us go with a warning. We got to the venue a bit before we needed to so we hung out in the car for ages before signing in and setting up our stuff. We could have gone later if we had registered the day before but it is 30 minutes away and it seemed like a waste of time to drive an hour for a five minute registration however I would have gotten an hour more sleep that way.
A very valid attempt at dancing |
The bike didn't start out much better. I hopped on the bike and was clipping in when a guy crashed onto me. His pedals were tangled in my wheels. Luckily a race marshal was around and helped us get sorted before we got on our way. After that the bike was really good. I found a number of people that were going similar speeds to me. There were some people that were flying. I would hear them and all of a sudden a huge bunch would soar past me. It was a bit over whelming but not to bad.
Fiona, Indie and I after the triathalon |
Fiona had gotten ahead of me on the bike and met me near the finish line to run up to the finish with me. Tanya and the kids had also come to watch. I had seen Tanya when I was biking and running. I met them up with them after and the Sharps, Fiona and I went to get breakfast together.
That evening Ariel, Bevan and I went to Sangria Sunday and one of our old favourite restaurants, Blunderbuss. It’s not the same now that our regular staff aren’t there. It was fun thought. Ariel and Bevan were nice enough to listen to the entire play by play of the triathlon (in slightly more detail than you just read).
On Monday I had to work so Ariel and I hung out in the morning and then she went to hang out wit her old host family. Tuesday they too her to the air port. I am so glad that she was able to come back and visit. I have been really lucky to make such an amazing friend here. I hope we keep getting to meet up where ever our travels take us.