To be honest, the van is starting to smell a little musty and 'lived in', despite our best efforts, but it has been a great experience to travel the length of New Zealand's two major islands and return to the point from which we first started.
Returning on the main artery, SH1, we made a brief stop at the village of Pokeno, which has made a name for itself by selling enormous ice creams. The local shop sells 7 scoops for a measly $8NZ. We settled on a paltry two scoops of "Tip Top" ("Kiwi for ice cream") and slurped them eagerly in the sun that deigned to appear as we wandered the Sunday market.
Despite being officially 'winter', the weather today was muggy and the sun burningly hot when it appeared from behind the extensive cloud cover. Compared to the lengthy journeys we have previously made on the island, today's route was a tiny distance. Still, we broke it at Auckland's regional botanic gardens, alighting unexpectedly at the dog walker's entrance at the rear of the park.
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| Meta-photography |
The roses were hanging in, but the gardens were not as impressive as others we have seen. Nevertheless, they made a good stop to eat our picnic of sandwiches in the sunshine.
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| Auckland botanic gardens |
Having become accustomed to single track roads wherever we go, the route into Auckland was confusing and poorly signposted. We eventually managed to navigate our way back to the Escape depot, where we unceremoniously handed over the keys to the little van and watched it rejoin its brethren in the garage.
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| Back in the fold |
Lugging our heavy bags that the van had tirelessly borne for us, we made our way to the Nomads Fat Camel hostel to drop them again. Divested of our baggage and back in the same city we started in, we made our way to the Toi O Tamaki art gallery.
With only a brief while to explore its contents, we alighted on the very new video installation by Lisa Reihana: In Pursuit of Venus (infected). This five-projector screening takes Joseph Dufour's depiction of European/Polynesian encounter 'Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique' and reimagines it with speculative, but arguably more accurate depictions of the early 19th century encounters.
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| Colonialism (reimagined) |
The original characterisation reflects the exotic and unknown people in classical Greek dress (togas?), poses and dance. The reimagining uses moving images to reflect the engagement of Cook and the other settlers with the Maori, which often erupts into violence resulting from cultural expectations and misinterpretations.
Afterwards, we decided to pay homage at the same establishment we visited six weeks ago - Brothers Beer, which was recently voted the best bar in New Zealand. We concluded with a selection of Auckland's own Liberty brewery ales, including a juicy Knife Party IPA, a rich Yakima Scarlet, and a dark, coffee-roasted Darkest Days stout, which is getting the Aucklanders ready for winter.
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| My new front room |
For a filling feed that departed from the western staples of burgers and pizza, we dropped into Japanese noodle shop Mentatz, which we had scouted near to the gallery earlier. We barely managed to squeeze in among the predominantly Japanese local crowd and ordered two steaming bowls of rice and toppings - known in Japanese as 'don' (丼, meaning 'bowl').
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| The don of all rice bowls |
Teriyaki tofu don was a comforting bowl of carbs for me, while K went with the egg tofu don. We left happy customers and ventured on to Vulcan Lane to Vulture's Lane for a nightcap. The bar's name is an old nickname, given to the alleyway when men of the area were preyed on by local unsavoury types, ranging from prostitutes to bookmakers. Fortunately the area is much more salubrious today and the range of beer was excellent in the bar - the televised rugby was the only thing to detract from the otherwise cosy atmosphere.
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