Southeast Coast

We were going to go to the Tararuas at the weekend, but on Friday night Penny and Jamie rang up to see if we wanted to go to the south-east coast for the weekend instead. Caspar and Nadine are going overseas and this was a sort-of farewell for them (even though they're only going for six weeks).

Caspar and Penny hatched a last-minute plan to hire a bach for a night at Ngawi, near Cape Palliser. [For the overseas readers, a bach is a holiday house]

Would you hire your bach to this guy?

On the way to Ngawi we visited Lake Ferry and the Putangirua Pinnacles. The pinnacles are funky (though a little unstable).

That night we stayed in Kupe's Retreat (actually just a standard bach with a fancy name) and played an epic boys vs girls game of Cranium. Unfortunately I couldn't find my camera so there is no photographic evidence that the girls won. How many people know how to spell "isosceles"?

I also don't have any photos of Caspar, Nadine, Ramesh or Jo! Sorry guys.

The lighthouse at Cape Palliser is probably the most famous thing in this part of the world. It has 250 steps. Boys' stair challenge results: Caspar 0:57, Mark 1:00, Jamie 1:03 (though he didn't haul with his arms).

The landscape was very similar to the southwest coast of the South Island - quite bare, windswept and wild. With lots of seals.

Camping is OK, probably pimping too, but definitely not both at once.

How many seals can you see? We generally smelt them long before we saw them.

Jamie led us up this cool gorge and we found a couple of ropes already attached. We didn't get far but will have to come back with our own ropes and do it in reverse.

I managed to get a bit dirty.

Cakie goodness

Just for something different: a post entirely devoted to food. Not really surprising as Mark and I spent a fair whack of our time in the kitchen making various concoctions. I'm sure many of you have been subjected to our culinary attempts, and given that most of you lived to tell the tale they can't have been that bad.

We don't usually take photos of our creations, but over the past couple of months I've gathered a little collection of some; here is three of the tastiest or most interesting looking cakes:

This is a whole orange cake & almond cake with a white chocolate palisade that I made for Neil Kane's birthday. The title doesn't lie: it involves boiling a whole orange in a pot for an hour before blending it to a fine mush to add to the cake. Can't beat orange and white chocolate!

This was one of my cupcakes for Rosa's cupcake bake0ff (you can see the rest of the entries here: http://culinaryexplorationsnz.blogspot.com/2010/04/first-wellington-bake-off-cupcakes.html). It was entitled cupcakes squared, as it's a cake in a cup in a cake in a cup. Everything apart from the big cup is edible. I'm sure my grandma would be 'tickled' to see her coffee cup set used for such a purpose!

This is another set of cupcakes I made for Charles & Sally's flatwarming. They are banana & chocolate, topped with chocolate buttercream and either a rose, peace lily or daisy. Fair to say I spent the better part of a Saturday afternoon playing at moulding sugar paste...