Drink Coffee / Straddle Large Mammal

In my last communication, I mentioned that the Swiss Family Robinson entry was the penultimate blog post.  I suspect that, given the time that has passed since that post, many of you have pulled out your dictionaries to see whether you really knew what "penultimate" meant and whether it was really just a synonym for ultimate.  You have been vindicated in your knowledge of the English language, as this ultimate post confirms the last one was the penultimate post.  Whew, got that?

We left the Coromandel and returned to Auckland Friday evening just in time for some Indian take away with Dave and the family.  I am embarrassed to say that I forgot to take pictures of the excellent chicken tika, but just as well, as that would start making me very hungry.

On Saturday, we went to a town called Matakana Village, which has an insane farmers market with just about every conceivable food item available.

There were mussels (of course):

Pies, smoothies, coffee, waffles, wine, free range eggs, nuts, crepes, banh bao (say what?), and oh so much more.

Debbie found a local bookstore:

And I found the most artistic bathrooms in New Zealand:

Having engorged ourselves, we headed out to the Morris & James Pottery & Tileworks company to check out the local pottery scene.

Debbie and Max were elected pottery queen and king and Olivia was into something fishy:

I bought a pot to pee in so I wouldn't fall victim to that common expression (apparently everyone else was too young to express concern enough to buy their own pots and I refuse to allow them to use mine), and we left for the vineyard / sculpture garden.  The sculpture garden was set  within the vineyard in a small valley with lots of ponds and an fantastic glass pavilion.

We drank wine and wandered around the sculpture trails.

I had another deeply moving religious experience at the sight of this and would have dropped to my knees in awe and wonderment if I hadn't been sitting in the passenger seat of Dave's car:

Spent, we went home for the day.

On Sunday, the whole gang headed for Auckland.  We had been through it a few times now but hadn't spent any time there.  It is a very cool place, big enough to be fun and small enough to be manageable.  More importantly, they just seem to "get" me and the fact that I drink coffee, look sharp, and like sheep:

There was a little something for everyone and we all found something of interest:

One of Andrew's friends even gave him a shout out:

I am told that Auckland has a needle, but it's like looking for one in a haystack and I couldn't find it anywhere.  I took lots of pictures of the city to see whether I could pick it out when I got home and had more time.

Sara applied to the University of Auckland as her stretch school but she hasn't heard back yet.  She had a nice campus visit.

Monday, we had an evening flight so Sara, Debbie and I headed back to Auckland for the day to explore some more.  In addition to walking around the city, we ended up taking the ferry to Devonport, a harbor-side suburb of Auckland on the North Shore just across from the city.

 It was a quaint town with some galleries, antique places, etc. although one building stood out as being particularly important:

We ate one last round of mussels at lunch and headed to the airport.

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As you can see, we had an absolutely amazing time in New Zealand.  We cannot thank David, Megan, Max, and Olivia enough for their incredible hospitality and for just being so much fun.  We also cannot thank Hank enough for the tickets that made it possible.

If you haven't had enough pictures by now, the last weekend described above can be seen in all its unedited glory here:  https://picasaweb.google.com/cariboulane/StraddleLargeMammal?authkey=Gv1sRgCKimxs2tyeOSvQE#