Beach Walk Redux and More Food

 

New Zealand has an unusually high number of fern species for a temperate country and about 40 per cent of these species occur nowhere else in the world. 

Are you ready for another day of good eating, campers? Here's a lovely line of greens that's labeled with the grower's name, Allan Fong. I like the idea of a person attached to a grown product. Interesting story...

Originally a grandfather and father business, the Fong family’s dedication to fresh produce started in 1948 when Allan’s father, started growing a select range of crops from a 12ha holding...Pro-actively adopting Integrated Pest and Disease Management (IPM) programmes enables production of crops with nil or minimal pesticide residues.

(Which begs the question of which pesticides are used, but my sense is that most NZ crops aren't bathed in chemicals like the conventionally grown produce in the US.)

Tasty greens and they form the base for our breakfast salad, with hard-boiled eggs, mushrooms, radish, olives, zucchini, leftover beets, and green onion. Dressed in an olive oil-wine vinagrette with fried haloumi on the side and, big treat, toasted sourdough.

Am I really this happy because of a salad?

Part 2: in which we re-attempt the ten-minute walk to the beach

See Art down there on the path? Apres salad and some investigations into where we might stay next (I'm telling you, camping is so much easier), we headed back to the beach, clear instructions again in hand. And this time we did it in one go, no help from psychic dogs.

These shots don't show the extent of the elevation difference between the house and sea level. It's a long pull upward on the return, a delightful workout for legs and lungs.

The culprit last time was this barrier. Behind it is the path to the beach. Who among us wouldn't respect what appears to be a driveway gate? 

In today's early afternoon light, the beach takes on an entirely different personality.

See those houses at 3 o'clock?

They seem to make up a nice little community.

Macro view  We do this in the north woods of Canada, getting down on our bellies to see what's growing on damp logs. There's a world down here.

This one's for Holly. She'll remember our line-up of tiny shells. If there are any palm readers in our audience, I'm all ears.

It's about 75 degrees, with relentless sun and a cooling breeze. Time for a fizz. After 2.5 weeks, we finish our little bottle of gin. Boo.

Petit dinner: gurnard, organic greenie beans, sour-cream-and-onion tartar sauce, clementine.

I live with nature deficit disorder pretty much year-round. Feet in the water, head in the sky, this makes me happier than any salad.