Takaka > Nelson > Pelorus Bridge

Harwood Lookout

On our way to Pelorus Bridge from Takaka.. Very nice lookout point.. Look at the clouds below =) 

Real fruit ice cream again in Nelson! This time with frozen yogurt instead of vanilla ice cream... But we prefer the vanilla creamy mixture with real berries though!

Nelson Sunday Market** at Montgomery carpark. Selling secondhand stuff like flea market. Some stalls selling fish &chips, hotdogs and fruits. Got these lovely peaches from a stall, they are so delicious!

Pelorus Bridge*****, these guys tied a rope on the car bridge and made a mini bridge swing! Crazy! Looks fun!

The road from Takaka to Nelson and to Pelorus bridge is so so windy. We got a bit dizzy from the four hours of driving, lucky us our next destination at Pelorus River looks promising to heal those dizziness!

Pelorus River

A cool swim in the river! Gosh it is refreshing!! Not that cold, at least Peter didn't shiver after that swim... It was nice relaxing at this riverside, on the rocky stones instead of the usual beach side. Watching people kayak by, jumping into pools and just reading :)

We also took a 45 min circle track to explore the area.. But nothing beats a good refreshing swim!

Leftover salmon head and tail from yesterday's fishing, turned into a yummy Salmon head tomyam soup! We are still in NZ and reading Southeast Asia Lonely Planet already?! Haha... Yes, to match our dinner of the day ...

Free camp at Brown River reserve, turn into Tennyson inlet..

Dunedin Railway Station & Farmers Market

This Railway station @ Dunedin is said to be the most photographed building in NZ, with the special scottish architecture. Located just beside the farmers market, it is popular for the Taieri Gorge Railway which is a half day scenic ride from Dunedin to Pukerangi. Yha holders are entitled for 20% discount (about $69 after discount at the time of writing), but we just pass on this interesting ride.

Dunedin farmers market**** is open every Saturday from 8am-12noon. We park our van at the Cadbury's choc employees parking area which is open to public on saturdays with gold coin donation. And we got some mini choc bars for donating too. Off street parking at the market is $1.00 an hour, starting from 9am-6pm mon-sat. So we can park at cadbury till 12noon.

The fruits and veggies in the farmer's market is real value for money. There is a cooking demonstration stall featuring the good foodies sold around the market. Yummy scallops is on feature today, lucky us!

We bought cheese, veggies, and whitebaits from the market. Gosh, these little whitebaits above costs $100 per kg! Will know if its worth the price after dinner ;) so it cost us $10 for a tiny 100g bag!

Dunedin is actually a scottish settlement place back in 1848. Traditional scottish performance, bag pipe performance.

Other attractions in Dunedin would be Cadbury Chocolate tour, Speights Brewery tour which we are not quite interested in. If there were a Whittakers chocolate company, we would love to pay a visit! Totally much better tasting choc than Cadbury, in our opinion :p

We met up with Justin, a korean friend we knew from Teviot Orchard at Roxburgh. He showed us a good Vietnamese restaurant, Saigon Van$ at St Andrew St which is really good and priced reasonably. The beef pho and spicy beef noodles is really good! Cost about $9-$11 per bowl during lunch. Then we caught up with the daily dose of caffeine at Eureka! A nice cafe and bar with yummy choc brownies, located at Albany St.

Auckland with Balz & Jenny

We met Balz and Jenny during our Diving course in Cairns, and today we meet them again in Auckland. It was just amazing how helpful this couple can be. They fetch us to the Backpackers car market and advised us on car buying in Auckland which we know little of. We saw one van recommended by the staff there, a Toyota Estima with a built in bed. $4200 for the 1995 van which had done over 300,000km is a bit too expensive for us with the mileage done. Apparently there are some negative reviews about the Auckland car market from overpriced vehicles to problematic vehicles. Best to check online about them. The other websites for backpackers van trade is backpackerboard.co.nz. They also have a lot of information of job vacancies and travelling in NZ. 

 Auckland Fish Market****

 

Then we had a beautiful lunch of fish and kumara (sweet potato) chips at the Auckland fish market. P&A also bought salmon sashimi to share. Balz and Jenny have never tried them before. Seems like Balz accepting the yummy flavour!

Rangitoto Island from Devonport lookout. This island looks similar from every point of view... There are hiking trails available in that island.

 Jumping on the Rangitoto..!

 Auckland, City of Sails...

Its really fun because Balz and Jenny wanted to try Asian food. So we went to the chinese grocer and got a Malaysian curry paste. Malaysian dinner it is! We cooked curry chicken, tofu and kailan in oyster sauce.

It was a great night indeed. Learned a lot about Swiss culture, mostly eating culture. Hehe.. Hope to see them again in Auckland when we're back :)

Snow Skiing for the FIRST TIME!

LAST 10 DAYS in PERTH (II)

We met up with Celestina, a hometown friend of Peters’. She is so good, bringing us to top eats of Perth. And coincidently, her friends who are hairdressers from Singapore came for visit and we had our haircut! Just in time, before going to New Zealand. So here we are at Ciao Italia$$, very famous for its pasta and wood fired pizza. Long queue at the front, but its really worth the wait!

Savouring the true Italian wood fired pizza and pasta at Ciao Italia$$, East Perth. Their tiramisu is quite good too. Sicilian Pizza and Chilli King Prawn Pizza. Both also very tasty! $26 each..

Tiramisu...

San Churros, at James St.. Spanish Doughnuts and chocolate drinks..

The churros are slightly overpriced, 6 churros and 2 choco dip for $14! for a dessert...

Crema de Fresa milkshake is quite good too, not too sweet. Blend of yummy strawberries with white chocolate. Paying that much money for dessert, we savour this doughnuts and milkshake real slowly.. LOL. Surely they are heavenly good when dipped in the milk choc and caramel dipping!

BIG soft comfy shoes.... found at Harbourtown shopping center.. Ideal for winter! 

Snack of Gelare's waffle, half price on tuesday!

Nao Japanese Ramen @ Murray St... Yums but not as good as Freo's market Ramen... =P

Little Caesar Restaurant$ at Leederville. Selling their famous dessert pizza. This is Choc Mudhoney, which is chocolate mud cake and honey on top of a pizza, with white and milk choc tablets.

Medicating the sweet tooth!!!

At Fremantle Market*****, open from fri-sun...

So we are back at Fremantle, a city just 30mins from Perth. Come here during fri-sun cause that's when the shops opens!

Dokusoi Ramen$ shop at Fremantle Market. The best full flavour ramen in PErth and Freo so far! Priced from $7.50-$9.. YUMS!!!

Macaroons at Freo Market...

Many street performers in front of the Freo market.. If there's nothing to do you can always stand and watch whole day =P

The fishing boat harbour @ FREO

Dare to try this gelato?

E-SHED Markets*** Place to get souvenirs.. The prices here for nougats and macadamia nuts are a bit more expensive than those in Chinatown (william street)..

Coffee time @ Fremantle Bakery.. Kahlua and hazelnut cake, a big piece for $6.50..

Beautiful sunset... This may be our last sunset in OZ...

The eating continues @ Cicerello's Fish & Chips$$.. Oh and Chilli Mussels! The food is good but not as good as the first time we had one year ago... WHy??? The fish got soggy and mussels cold... probably we took quite a long time taking photos.. LOL.. The chilli mussels at Bella Roma (also in Fremantle) are said to be YUMMY too.. but we haven't got that big a stomach after a whole day eating spree in FREO.. lol...

NEXT: The very last day =)