September 29, 2023 Day 2 New Zealand
Our first full day in New Zealand was beautiful, sunny and very windy! In the late afternoon of the day of our arrival we walked a few blocks in lashing rain to a small retail area nearby. We were pretty soaked when we arrived at a great little Indian restaurant and enjoyed a wonderful meal of curried lamb, the first of lots of lamb dishes we’re looking forward to! The second day we had much better weather and we walked the opposite direction to the little center of the community of Mangere Bridge.
We passed the Mangere Mountain walkway to the summit, part of which is behind this beautiful palm tree view. We also saw our first wildlife, a bird strutting along the busy road.
It looks like some sort of heron or egret.
Interspersed between more modern town houses and mid-century houses are some very ‘colonial’ style houses. Some are renovated like this one, some are run down and we saw one in the middle of renovations.
Everywhere there is evidence that it is springtime here! We stopped at a little bakery and bought meat pies, mine a steak & mushroom pie, Robert’s a bacon & egg pie. We enjoyed lunch on a park bench in a cute little park surrounded by some blooming bushes.
It got windier on our walk back, then started raining so we ended up having dinner delivered to our motel room from the Indian restaurant down the street!
September 30th, 2023 at 7:42 am
Aha. I looked up Māngere Mountain and see it’s a volcanic crater! How exciting! And the spring blooms! Lovely. Thanks for your posts…
September 30th, 2023 at 2:30 pm
The colors are so vibrant! Wow! Gorgeous ❤️