Coral Club

One of my favourite restaurants, The Coral Club, opposite the airport, is on the beach but wedged in between 4 large aeroplane fuel storage tanks. They still manage to pull off a good sunset and they do a great chicken Caesar salad.

Happy Anniversary

Chris and I have been busy entertaining visiting friends and family for the past month, but I am back online now. Here we are celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary at Tamarind House restaurant - conveniently located next door to us.
& no need for the curling tongs on Raro, the 80% humidity makes my hair curly all day long.

Harvest

Everywhere I look around the island there are pawpaw trees laden with fruit. Except in our garden. We have five trees and a few months back one tree finally managed to squeeze out a fruit. I’ve been watching that pawpaw’s growth like a vegetarian hawk. Watching it grow. Watching it stubbornly remain green, week after week. But at last it turned yellow, signalling the time of harvest was at hand…

Ideas are welcomed for what we should now do with it. Eat it raw? Blend it with crushed ice and vodka? Maybe bake it with brown sugar and serve it with ice-cream?

Picnic

We had a sunset pizza picnic at BlackRock, our fav swimming beach, and followed that up with the local Coconut flavoured icecream, which is incredibly delicious - it tastes like homemade coconut-ice.

So much to do, so little time

We did lots of touristy things today with Mum and Alice. We went for a walk up above Hospital Hill to see the view. Visited the waterfall. Went snorkelling, which was very cool as there were Lots of pretty tropical fishies, like Butterfly fish. (Really need to get a waterproof camera!) [And snorkels 'cos we only had masks] And topped it off by attending the Edgewater Resort "Island Night" buffet and Cultural Dance. Phew!!!

Island Food

The “island food” as they call it, meaning what the locals traditionally eat (why don’t they just call it food?) is very nice and we have tried a great deal. We also got a cookbook from the library so we can have a go at it ourselves. I particularly like the Rukau (taro leaves) boiled with coconut. And Chris really likes the Ika Mata – raw fish marinated with lime, coconut and onions. But my overall fav is an island/western hybrid junk food - fresh homemade coconuts donuts that we buy when they are available from the Saturday farmers’ market called the Punanga Nui Cultural Market. SO yummy.
We haven’t been able to try any breadfruit as it’s out of season – I know, who would think food would be seasonal here? Avocadoes are also out of season : ( Fresh fish is very well priced compared to NZ prices – tuna at $14 a kilo.