Running with the Ward's: Piha

Showing posts with label Piha. Show all posts

Mid-winter Birthday Party and Exploration

This past Saturday Justin and I attended Rebecka's 32nd birthday party at her apartment across from ours. As Rebecka is from Sweden and normally celebrates a summer birthday with a traditional strawberry cake, she thought it would be fun to have a mid-winter celebration this year in the southern hemisphere. She ask each of us to bring a traditional dish that we ate in the winter but the catch was it had to be vegetarian. After some deliberation, I decided to take a pie. And because I am lazy, I thought a buttermilk pie would be an easy yet still traditional southern American treat.

Turns out I was wrong. My attempt at a buttermilk pie resulted in an epic pie making fail. I bought what I thought was a frozen pie crust from the supermarket which was tricky because Kiwi's don't actually make sweet pies. So I choose from the variety of frozen pastry crusts available. I popped my crust in the oven while mixing up the buttermilk pie inner-eds. When I pulled the pie crust out of the oven it had shrunk to about half the size of the pan! After this fail, I thought, I'll just make my own crust....it can't be that hard. Well, turns out it can be. After walking to the store to buy more flour and carefully mixing and rolling out my dough with a make-shift rolling pin (aka a triple sec bottle), I was rewarded with pie crust dough that would not even stay stretched out long enough to make it into the pan. At this point I had about 45 minutes until the party and no make up on. So I scrapped the idea of introducing my Swedish friends to an American treat and got out two bottles of wine!

Pie crust fail

The party was a success despite my epic pie making fail. We celebrated with gravad lax (dill-cured salmon with mustard sauce), lussekatter (saffron rolls), glogg (mulled wine with almonds and raisins) , and 3 dishes of Janssons Fretelse (potato and anchovies casserole). Evidently Janssons Fretelse is a popular Swedish dish!

Example of lussekatter as I didn't take any photos at the event

Justin and I spent a good deal of the party playing with an adorable 18 month old little girl from Malawi and her 2 month old little sister. They were both so cute and Kyra had the cutest curly hair!

On Sunday, we took the 3 US interns out to explore the west coast of Auckland. There are currently 3 interns (Ashley, Keila, and Tiffany) from the US working in the Auckland office as part of a global intern program. Ashley is from the Dallas office and attended Baylor. Keila is my counselee and is from the Seattle office. Tiffany is from our New York office and I have no further connection to her. We had a fun day visiting Piha beach and Karikari waterfall, hiking to White's beach, and capping off the day with lunch and tastings at a local winery in Kumeu.

Keila posing with the EY umbrella for an intern photo contest

Lindsay and Keila in front of Karikari Falls

Piha Beach....always beautiful

White's beach was a 2.2 km hike straight down from the road. Add to this the fact that it was an extremely windy and slightly drizzly day and the hike was not that enjoyable. However, we conquered the trail and made it back to our car in one piece!

The crew hiking down to White's Beach

White's Beach from the trail

White's Beach. It was so rough that day.

The Baylor crew and fun with photo editing

K&A in Auckland

Justin and I had to work for the next two days K&A were in town but we still managed to have lots of fun and laughs. K&A visited Devonport by ferry, relaxed, explored Auckland, and enjoyed the waterfront! Wednesday night we all went to Food Alley for dinner. Poor Aaron was so excited and decided to be adventurous by ordering a duck dish from the Chinese stand. Unfortunately, they left all the little tiny bones in the duck and it was a disappointment. The rest of us enjoyed our meals and we ended the evening at Movenpick for dessert.

Adventures in Devonport while we worked

Super cool traveler girl

Thursday evening I arrived home to a Mexican Fiesta made by our two guests! We had queso, salasa, guacamole, fresh fish and prawn tacos and delicious margaritas. This was one of my favorite nights with K&A and I felt so loved that they took the time to cook a feast for us!

Friday, I took the day off work and K, A, & I drove out to Piha to see the beautiful west coast black sand beaches. We visited Piha and the Karekare waterfall. We walked along the beach for quite a while and decided to take some pictures near the surf. As K&A posed, a huge swell came in and the water rose very quickly. Kara jumped into Aaron's arms without a thought that he would catch her and save her from getting her pants wet. Aaron managed to catch her despite no warning but Kara's pants were a casualty. I caught the whole thing in a series of rather funny photos.

Sisters on Piha beach

K&A on Piha beach

Love it!

And Aaron for the save!

We met Justin after work at Depot for a wonderful dinner. We ate way too much but had an amazing time and enjoyed every bite! We had to say goodbye that night before bed as K&A left at around 4 am to catch their flight to Sydney.

All in all it was a wonderful visit and I was very sad to see them go!

M&D Weekend 1

My parents arrived in Auckland bright and early Saturday morning and Justin and I picked them up at the airport after they cleared customs around 7:30. There were hugs and tears of joy all around (well at least for the women)! We drove back to our apartment and then headed out for some breakfast. After enjoying a welcome breakfast at L'Assiette, a cute french cafe near my office, we got M&D down for a nap.

Stopping to rest on our way home from breakfast (in front of the Cloud)

Rainbow on our walk home from breakfast

We spent the afternoon exploring some Auckland sites by car including Tamaki Drive down to St. Heilers where we enjoyed fresh baked goods from Bakers Delight and Daddy admired (and photographed) the boardwalk. We also took in the view from Mt Eden and the Auckland Domain. We had an early dinner at Jack Tar on the North Wharf before heading to bed early.


Auckland skyline from Tamaki Drive

Boardwalk in St Heilers

Father and daughter at Bastion Point

Both my parents (at different times) wanted a photo of this restroom

M&D on top of Mt Eden

Sunset at Auckland Domain

On Sunday, we got a late start and headed out to the west coast around 11. We stopped at Pack and Save on the way to pick up some picnic supplies. The day was overcast and very windy, with on and off rain but we didn't let that stop us. We did, however, opt to eat our picnic inside the car with a view of Piha beach. After lunch, Justin, Daddy, and I went exploring on the beach. We saw tons of starfish on our walk including a bright orange one.

Bright orange starfish and a demonstration of the word windy by my hair

How many do you see? My dad is an expert starfish hunter.

Next we took the short hike to KareKare falls. It was a fun hike (in the rain) through the forest to the bottom of the falls. Then it was off to Muriwai beach. We took a short hike up to the lookout and were lucky enough to see the Gannet colony. The birds had not been nesting during our previous visits to the beach.

KareKare Falls

Fun Lindsay being reckless despite the warnings!

Gannet colony

Muriwai Beach

We capped off the night with dinner at Hallertau. We got some appetizers to share and Mommy was not impressed with the pork belly but the rest of us enjoyed it thoroughly!

Piha and Karekare

Justin and I spent the day Saturday exploring the wild, west, black sand beaches of Waitakere Regional Park northwest of Auckland. The park is less than an hour drive from our apartment with about half of the travel time due to the winding, narrow roads through the park to the coast. It is hard to explain the roads but they wind through a thick forest with barely enough room for your car in the lane. So with every switch back I was afraid another car would be coming and cut the corner just a little bit into our lane! But Justin did a great job and remembered to stay on the left hand side of the road every time!

We explored Piha beach first hiking up a small cliff/rock and then walking down the beach. It is a popular beach for surfing due to the huge waves but you really need a wetsuit because the water is pretty cold. We got our feet wet but that was it. We walked past one part of the beach to climb the cliff/rock while the tide was low but by the time we headed back, the tide was much higher. As Justin tried to "shoot the gap" between waves, he stepped in a hole and dunked his shoes in the water (which were in his hands) while saving the camera with the other. Since Justin's shoes were soaked, we didn't get to do any tramping this trip and settled for a nice long walk down the beach (at least 30 minutes in one direction without reaching the end).

Piha Beach from our Cliff/Rock

Lindsay on the Beach

Justin walking at low tide

Tramping up the Cliff/Rock

South Piha Beach

Looking back at Piha Beach from the Cliff/Rock

After Piha, we drove a few kilometers down the road to Karekare. The road to Karekare made the road to Piha look wide and luxurious! It was a one lane road with the same constant switchbacks. We even encountered our first one lane bridge. Karekare was beautiful and probably the largest sand beach I have ever been on. It went on forever!