On our way to the Pickled Parrot - Bay of Islands

Will, Kirsten and I, left Friday lunchtime after a light bite to eat (remains of hummus, toms and bread), dropped off Gordon at cattery - hoodwinked into his box whilst sleeping by Kirsten! He went quietly and will hopefully forgive her/us when we pick him up on Tuesday (tomorrow). Auckland is a confusing place and it took us some time to navigate our way around doing a few last minute errands and on to highway one. Will drove us all the way to a little town Warkworth where we stopped for a more substantial lunch about 3pm. He was hoping for steak or pie and the first café we visited had very sad looking selection of cold/hot food that didn’t quite match his expectations. So on we wandered until we found another place that was slightly more gourmet. Top of the menu was burger topped with blue cheese and salad. Now I’ve been told a few times that cheese in NZ has a long way to go before it catches up with Europe, so I was surprised to see this option. I think the story I heard was in most supermarkets you have a choice of mild or tasty cheese and that’s it. Things are getting better - only very slowly…. We had to convince the café that we were nice people and beg them to cook us 3 burgers. Boy am I glad that we did because it was awesome!

Fully charged by sumptuous food, Kirsten took over the driving and led us to our final destination of the Pickled Parrot hostel at Paihia in the Bay of Islands. A long drive - took several hours and was dark when we arrived about 7pm. We unloaded our stuff into our accommodation; Will and Kirsten had a room called the Morepork and I was staying in the Quails dorm. Then set out for another great feast at Café number 6, along the coast and about 5 mins walk away. We sunk a tasty Shipwrecked Bay, Sauvignon Blanc with our food and ambled back for an early night about 10.30pm. (A picture of place taken next morning)