A Team

On my first night in Shanghai I joined the "A Team", the Tourism NZ Asian staff, for an incredibly spicy and delicious dinner!

WOW!

This weekend I helped host special guests at the Montana World of Wearable Art Awards Night and then to Nelson to visit the WOW Museum and the Abel Tasman National Park. What a stunning part of NZ!

Paddy's 30th

My bro turned 30 last week! We celebrated his birthday on his land at Mangawhai with 3 spit roasts, close friends and family.

Mitai

"Mitai"a Maori cultural performance and meal...

Giant Mushrooms!

Earlier this week I was in Rotorua for the Maori Tourism Conference... Walking on Mokoia Island in the centre of Lake Rotorua and then in native rain forest surrounding luxury lodge Tree Tops I came across giant mushrooms like I've never seen before! I'm hoping to try the Giant Mokoia Mushrooms at Mokoia Restaurant next time I'm in Rotorua!

We joined Charles Royal's Maori Food Trail at Tree Tops - and wow what an incredible tour we had! We scouted the dense and lucious forest for indigenous herbs and plants including Horopito, Kawakawa and Piko Piko. "Horopito has a chili pepper bite and is dried and used as a rub and seasoning, as is Kawakawa, which is used medicinally as a herbal tea and has traditional applications for stomach pains, blood cleansing, tooth ache and as a general tonic. Piko Piko, which is New Zealand’s native fern, is harvested and used for its edible shoots." By the time we returned to the lodge we were drenched and so we had our lesson in preparing Maori cuisine in robes as our clothes dried!

Matakana

Spring is here! On Saturday we headed an hour north to Matakana to enjoy the first sunny weekend in too long! Our first stop was the Matakana Markets for whitebait fritters, crepes, free range eggs and chutney. Then we went to Brick Bay Winery to find our friend's sculpture and stop for a picnic lunch along the charming 45 minute Sculpture Trail. Our final destination was Sandspit for a relax and D&M on a jetty :) What a fab day!

City Lights

Yesterday we had our winter gathering of City Lights - an outreach in South Auckland involving over 20 different churches around town. We had a record number of 200 volunteers taking part in projects such as putting on a fun day in Mangere; playing with orphans and foster care kids; DIY (do it yourself) on Mangere Baptist Church which hosted us, foster care properties and painting the fence at a kindergarten; spending time with women at a Women's Refuge etc. Wayne and I helped cater for the masses with the sausies above at multiple sausage sizzles and feeding the troops when they got back to our bass after their projects :)

These murals are new additions to the church walls by graffti artists Bless 275 and others. (FYI 275 are the first three phone numbers for Mangere).