Waitangi Day in the middle the week is freaking AWESOME. I completed 2 of my 10 summer tasks. If we had public holidays on Wednesdays more often, I’d get more shit done. Not burnt out enough to need a full day’s quiet time, not tacked onto a weekend to lead to 2 days of partying plus one of nursing a hangover.
Waitangi Day is unofficially considered New Zealand Day and there’s a whole lot of history if you want to get into it, but for most kiwis, it is a public holiday that can be guaranteed to be sunny.
My morning was spent nursing a bowl of leftover pasta, attending to emails and blogging while cooking up a batch of tomato sauce. Eager to take it for a test drive, the afternoon was spent with a van-load of friends at Cheltenham Beach. This is our favourite swimming beach at high tide (don’t even bother at low tide). We enjoyed fish and chips with my bottle of home made tomato sauce, a refreshing swim, making sand sculptures, a sunset walk at North Head and a perfect evening finished off with friendly drink at Mecca in Devonport. Mecca cafe and restaurants are one of my design clients and it’s always nice visiting places that you’ve done work for.
Waitangi day is Bob Marley’s Birthday and there was a high tide at 4.20pm yesterday. Get it? Bob Marley, High tide, 4.20pm? Marley, HIGH tide, 420? Nevermind.
Check out my next post for the awesomesauce recipe.
Bunny Eats Design 
I would have definitely been there had I been in Auckland (unless there was a super awesome free gig – then I would have tried to do both).
Did you go to the fish and chip store up from the beach opposite the little service station? I loved that place.
My Waitangi celebrations were slightly different and a bit cooler….
Hey Aims! We went to Bema Takeaways, I didn’t notice a service station there, maybe it was closed and really, really little?
I’m sure you meant bowl, but it got a good laugh.
Oh gawd, yes. A bowel of pasta, now that’s some leftovers I could do without!
Hehehe!
Tee hee, I get it. HIGH tide. Hilarious.
I ate fish and chips twice when I was back – they are amazing. You can’t get decent ones here, and I wasn’t a fan of the English ones, either!
Hmmmm…what’s different about them? I know that English prefer malt vinegar rather than tom sauce right?
Ohhh take me with you to the beach next time!! What beautiful photos!
Miss doing this! I used to go for a walk along Cheltenham Beach after dinner each evening as I lived round the corner for a while. Did you get your fish and Chips from Delissimos (can’t remember how to spell it)? One of the things I like about NZ fish and chips is getting it bread crumbed, can’t get that here!
Looks like it was a wonderful mid-week holiday! Gosh, could I use something like that right now.
I wish tomorrow was another mid-week holiday.