With the New Years Holiday and the Day After New Years Holiday (it really says this on the calendar), Cory had another 4-day weekend. Instead of a big trek somewhere, we decided to hang close to home. As it turned out, we kept plenty busy.
New Years Eve at the Mount is absolutely crazy. Apparently, it is the place to be on this night. The crowds flowed in and the population had swelled to 10,000 for the big night. Two separate stages on the beach, a large beer garden, food vendors, and carnival rides were all set up. There was no official ball-drop or countdown, but fireworks marked the moment.
New Years Day was capped by a great meal at a friend’s house. They have a kiwi orchard on their land that they rent out, and Cory really enjoyed walking around. We’d been wondering how the kiwi fruit were picked, as the tree tops are espaliered horizontally to the ground, and it appeared from the roadside that a picker would be unable to walk underneath. But, as long as your kiwi fruit picker is short enough, they are good to go.
We didn’t do much to celebrate the “Day After New Years” but did enjoy the day off. Saturday night we went to Waihi Beach Pub to see Autozamm and Opshop, two great Kiwi bands. The show was really great, though we are definitely getting old, as we totally wished we’d had earplugs.
Sunday we lunched at a friend’s place. A family from Rarotonga was staying with him (he regularly visits “Raro”, as they call it, to do orthopaedic work) and we ate the most amazing meal. No shortage of food – a giant (and I mean GIANT) crayfish, snapper, steak, Island potato salad, taro root, taro leaves, baked bananas with coconut cream… I’m sure there was more, but this is all I can recall. I left in sort of a food haze. Our host also has an orchard and sent us home with a ridiculous amount of mandarins and tangelos. We’ve been juicing the tangelos – they are fantastic!
I talked with my parents today – they are the first of our visitors and will arrive in just days! I can’t wait! Feel free to make your own trip plans…
Monday, January 5, 2009
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