Weekend Cooking: What We Ate on Holiday - NZ edition

We just ducked over the Ditch for a week for the last week,by which  I mean we meticulously planned a week long trip to the South Island of New Zealand. Our main reason for going was to attend the Sail GP event in Christchurch. we also took the opportunity to cross another thing off of our to be done list by visiting Milford Sound! 

After a pretty average flight, we arrived and headed straight to our hotel and then went for a walk into town. Christchurch is a city that is still in the process of being rebuilt following the devestating earthquakes of 2011. One of the things that they have done really well is to create various zones in the city which are full of great eateries. There is still quite a bit of construction happening, including the repairs to the cathedral. I am looking forward to visiting again to see how much progress has been made in a couple of years.

Whenever I visit America, one of the first things I do is have a classic margarita. However, given that I wasn't in the US, I decided to compromise further and had an apple and elderberry frozen margarita! It certainly hit the spot!

On both the Friday and Saturday nights we ended up eating near the river. There were so many options it was hard to choose, and I don't mean from the menu. In the end, we ended up sharing a few items (top pic)  and then on the Saturday night we literally had a sharing platter from the Irish pub in town

Because I was in New Zealand, I really needed to have some ice cream, because they do make great ice cream. The first time I ever visited NZ I tasted Boysenberry ice cream and I still eat it, whether it be in ice cream form, or in yoghurt, or wherever! Don't ask me what a boysenberry looks like because I have no clue, but they taste good! This trip tried some new flavours from a chain called Rollickin - the first was salted caramel and Girl Next Door which is "Playful yogurt whipped with pretty pomegranate gelato & dollops of sweet lemon & passionfruit curd. With flirty flickers of raspberry."  The second time we went I got a scoop of Yogi Bear ice cream which is "Whippin yogurt gelato with dollops of thick gooey ooey caramel." What they both were is delicious!

We did have tickets for both days of the sailing. The first day we were on a boat which was moored out near the start finish line, which included food and drink. I did fully intend to take some photos of the food, but it didn't happen! It was a nice day out and we really enjoyed the experience but we were pretty far away from the sailing. Then the next day we were in the grandstands with tickets that we were only able to get the week before the event, and the view was spectacular! If we had of been in the grandstands and then on the boat, it might be have been a disappointment! 

On the Monday, we drove to Queenstown, which is another spectacular place. On our first night there, we had dinner at Skyline which is a restaurant at the top of the mountain which overlooks the town and Lake Wakatipu! It is such a spectacular location.

I can't remember the last time I had a buffet! There was plenty of great food available, ranging from a lobster consomme, all the prawns you can eat, roasts, and more! and some delicious white sangria!

This was a super quick look at some of the dessert bar!

Along the way, we also took the opportunity to try a few NZ treats. For example, this is lolly lake, a chocolate slice which has a specific type of lolly/candy in it. I don't think you can get the specific lollies here, but there is a version using pineapple lumps which you can get here! Look for this coming up at some point in the future!

On the Tuesday, we drove about an hour out of Queenstown, where we met my friend Sally who lives a bit further south  - another fantastic drive!

One of the other major things that we did while we were away was a trip to Milford Sound. This is a place that I have wanted to visit for years, and it was spectacular! It was more than a three hour drive each way and then two hours on the boat. We had thought about driving ourselves, but it was a definitely a better choice to take a bus tour and let someone else doing the driving. We also had a buffet lunch on the boat but there was no time for photos. There was practically a stampede as soon as everyone got on board the boat, so it was a case of find a seat and then elbows out while you fought to get access to the food. Maybe it wasn't quite that bad, but still.

 Look at this place though....

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