Auckers To See Charlotte

I popped across the ditch for the weekend at the start of October, to see Charlotte. Now, I got a lot of flack for doing this, from the un-traveled. It seems they had never heard of anyone doing this - I had to explain that for anyone who has lived in London, catching a train to Paris for the weekend, or a plane to Barcelona for a couple of nights, or stealing away for a long weekend to Venice was just the London life! It didn't really fly for them, though. Silly them.

Anyway, I ditched work a touch early, got to Tullamarine, parked the car, jabbed myself with celexane to prevent DVT, and 3 hours and a bit later I landed in Auckland! Easy as! Miss Charlotte and Matt met me at the airport, despite the time difference making it very late for them.

The time difference caught up with me the next morning, with an effective wake up at 5am for me, but 8am NZ time....to a glorious, sunshine filled day. We went for a drive to the North of Auckland, to visit the Matakana markets. After sampling a whole heap of yummy wares, we then went to the nearby Brick Bay Winery. Here, the 3 of us walked the Sculpture Trail, which was very cool, despite Matt and my protests at the nature contact, the over-abundance of fresh air, and obscure art!! A bottle of wine to soak in the sunshine, and catch up on the past couple of years, was gorgeous.

Now, due to the inability of Australia to make a decision on anything this year, the afternoon was filled with the necessity of watching the AFL Grand Final Replay, after a draw at the end of the scheduled season. We were directed to The Paddington by an absent Ex-Pat, and here I tried to outline how good our game is, to 2 rugby fans. Not the best game for this!

The next day Charlotte took me out for an awesome brunch at Kokako, before another farmer's market, and a little drive around the bay. We checked out her place of work, and then Matt drove us up to One Tree Hill for a bit of a look over the city. The 3 of us then went to The Chapel for a Sunday session, with a crew joining us, for cider in the sunshine.

Such a great weekend, to mark both our birthdays for the month, and to catch up on Charlotte's new life back home. Was so good to see them both.