Wednesday, November 12, 2008

12th November 2008- Time to try Mangonui famous fish & chip shop


It was a bit grey again this morning and it looked like it would rain soon, but it didn’t.

Most of the day was spent considering what we would do for our last month in NZ, would we fly to Christchurch and rent a car there or rent one in Auckland and drive to the Coramadel Peninsular (east of Auckland) then drive down to Wellington and use the ferry to Picton. Decisions, decisions. However no real decision has yet been made at the moment as its still some time before February next year.

So we took it easy for the day read books, Noel listened to his I-pod and lunch was on the balcony. Although it was greyish it was not cold and the ambient temperature is improving slowly. In fact the South Island seems to be warmer than the North Island which is a little strange as the North Island is nearer the tropics.

We received an email from our hosts to say that it looked like we had almost exceeded our internet data transfer capacity for a month in less than 10 days. I suppose I am used to the UK SKY broadband that we have at home which is operating at around 14 mb download and 780 mb upload, no max usage and all for £ 10.00 per month. Here in NZ it’s quite different where broadband cost is considerably higher than the UK and with much slower speeds and restricted data transfer capacity and so when I am updating my Phanfare blog with photos I pretty much blew the months usage on one days photos and so will have to restrict photos for the time being until we find an alternative process.

Early evening we headed into Mangonui to try out the ‘World famous Mangonui Fish Shop (anyway that’s what is says outside the shop) We got there at about 7 pm and they had virtually no fish left and only one type available, I asked did they have any more fish and the lady said no. Strange I thought and then ten minutes later another great pile of fresh fish arrived??(Perhaps that’s why its world famous for not having much fish). By comparison our experience with the Akaroa fish & chip shop, near Christchurch, where you had a major choice of about 8-10 types of fish and plenty of it.

Afterwards we took a walk around the village and it was pretty much deserted but really very pleasant. There is a new Thai restaurant which was open but only the staff were there, most of the other cafes and bars (about four) were also empty. I am sure it will pick up in December when the schools close. We booked a table for dinner for this coming Saturday night at the Galley Restaurant (the restaurant is located inside the old Post office building built 1876 and rebuilt in 1904) where we went the night we arrived in Mangonui as it’s very good food and also it’s nice to eat out occasionally.

Back home and a little TV, we watched Inspector Linley and Murder Most Horrid, all UK productions.