Garden Tour, Ben's Fish Quarantine Tour, Burger Fuel, Costco, Piha Beach,
Grocery Stores - Woolsworth & Pak n'Save
Because there were so many of us staying at the house, we had to stagger our morning rituals. It was amazing that we had a total of 11 people staying there. After getting ready, we went out for a property/garden tour. Auntie kept many different fruit trees in her yard.
As more people woke up, and finished getting ready, we also woke up Ben so we could get a tour of his fish quarantine zone. This is where he quarantines newly imported exotic fish, before they’re allowed to be transferred to his store to be sold.
After this cool tour, everyone was ready, and we were off to grab some lunch. New Zealand has a local burger chain which we were headed to for lunch called Burger Fuel. We also took the opportunity here to try a local soda called Lemon & Paeroa. Pretty good soda, tasted like Lemon Coke
After lunch, was the obligatory visit to Costco! 😜 In every new country with a Costco, it‘s a must visit!
After walking around Costco for a while, we split up from the older crew. The older crew decided to go home, and start prepping for dinner. The younger crew though, we thought we’d head to Piha Beach for a visit. Jet Lag was hitting the HK folks pretty hard at this point. They were out cold in the back of the van
This turned out to be a very sketchy drive, especially as the sun was going down. As we started to get near the beach area, we found this cool spot on top of the mountain to take some pictures before the sun fully went down
Then we continued down the single lane road (for both directions), down the mountain to get to the beach. This would’ve been an amazing drive in a sports car. Less enjoyable in a minivan 😅, which is what we were in. But, we made it! By this time, the sunlight was fully gone. We tried our best to take pictures with Google night sight. It did very well, but still have a bit of blur.
Hard to tell in the pictures, but Piha Beach is known for its black sand.
And then home for a great family dinner. We’re slowly getting better at taking these big group selfies.
After dinner, we went for our first local grocery store visit. New Zealand has two popular ones. Tonight, we went to visit Woolsworth to see what local goodies there are. We already tried the Lemon&Paeroa earlier today, and now it was time to find a pack of Pineapple Lumps to try. They… weren’t that great 🙃 Tasted like a Starburst covered in chocolate
