Weekend full of FUN

Auckland Arts Festival

This weekend was a fun filled weekend from Friday evening through Sunday evening. Since we had not celebrated JC's birthday I wanted to do something different on Friday night to celebrate his special day. The Auckland Arts Festival is now on for 20 DAYS! Since we are staying at the Y all the activities are near by! I decided to purchase tickets to an outdoor event in Domain Park called the Breath of the Volcano. JC rushed to get home as I rushed to get everything ready for our picnic and night firework show! We made it to the park in time to have our picnic and a glass of wine before the park got extremely packed with people and dark! It was so neat to see everyone bring their elaborate picnics with bean bags and blankets! The show was done by a group from France. The show itself was a bit strange and we couldn't follow the story line. It lasted for an hour and was filled with different firework performances. By far this was a neat experience and something really different! Saturday morning JC's classmate, Lan, wanted to take us to West Auckland to visit the wine vineyards! She is from China and has lived here for 4 years! She was super nice to pick us up and drive us for a complete day tour. We stopped at the store to get tons of food for a BBQ she had planned at one of the vineyards! We stopped along the way tasting at different places. We then realized that Lan knew a lot about wine and she just completed a degree in Wine Science from University of Auckland! We had lunch at the West Brook Vineyard which was perfect. The have set up the vineyard to be a beautiful picnic/day trip! They had a lake with many tables along with 2 gas grills! We had a great time grilling and the food was so yummy! After resting from all the food and wine we hit the road again to another vineyard. We traveled in total to 4 vineyards. To end the trip, Lan took us to the famous Muriwai Beach! We walked around and saw tons of gannet birds hanging out on the high rock peaks. The views were amazing and the beach went on and on and on. This is the beach where the man was attacked by the great white shark, but... has been reopened now for surfing! After the beach we were are tired and headed back to Auckland Central. We arrived home around 7 and were pooped! After going 30 minutes outside of the city, JC and I realized we need to do that way more often! Sunday morning we woke up early to get ready for the Round the Bays fun run. JC's back was hurting a bit so he decided to stay at school to do work while Bryan and I went to walk the 8.5 KM path along the waterfront. I had no idea how big this fun run could be with over 80,000 people! It was crazy! Bryan and I arrived early and got to start pretty much near the starting line. Some people took 30 minutes to cross the starting line! We walked by our new apartment and then around the bays. It was beautiful and so nice to see so many people getting out to walk/run the race. Bryan and I had a race to the finish line where someone scans your number. Bryan barely beat me so I gave a slight push and got scanned before he did! So I WON! We then walked for 15 minutes to a huge area to have the "after walk" party. It reminded me so much of Southern football days. Each company had huge tents set up with music, BBQ's, and tons of food. We went to the University of Auckland's tent which was super nice and even had a white picket fence around the tent. They even had tons of veggie burgers and sausages! I have found New Zealand caters more to my diet! We ate lunch while sipping on wine which was kinda cool and weird after a "race." People stayed the entire day with their companies and friends enjoying the Sunday afternoon. Bryan and I left and walked to meet Marianne who had come to meet us in her car. Since we walked only one way you had to get a ride or take a bus back to the city. Marianne picked us up and then dropped me off at the house. I loved the walk but being the competitor I am it was hard to walk! JC came home from school and we decided to go down to the Aotea Center near our house to listen to live music in the park. We spent the afternoon there enjoying the great weather and music. The park was filled with over 4,000 peace flags that the local children had made to place over the park. It was so beautiful to see the colors and flags flying in the wind. Everyday there will be live music during the Arts Festival and we look forward to hanging out there a lot during the upcoming weeks. 

                                                                      Muriwai Beach

                                                              West Brook Vineyard
                             

                                                             Breath of the Volcano

                                        B