Lams go Kiwi Stop 3: Orewa to Rotorua

It's time for more Lam adventures in NZ!
En Route from Orewa to our stop 3 for the trip, Rotorua (back on real highways, yay!), we drove through Auckland and had a stop at Mt Eden for brunch. Have you seen the tower in Auckland? It makes Centrepoint Tower in Sydney look like a puny ball on a stick. This thing in Auckland is MASSIVE! You can see it from absolutely ages away and it's huge. Did I mention the size? {giggles} It's big. Sometime we'll have to go back and actually make the trip up the tower. It looked pretty cool! And large. Big. Huge.... Big.There was 2 Op Shops in Mt Eden, neither turned out to be good, but we did rock up to this cafe for brunch! I chose it cos it looked cool {smiles} and Jaimeson is having a Circus First Birthday Party so I wanted to soak up it's vibe!Turns out the vibe is only on the outside cos the inside of the cafe was a bit boring, but the food was quite good! Jaimeson enjoyed sitting up at the table in a highchair eating his breadsticks. Then some of Willy's big breakfast too, mushrooms, scrambled egg, sausage, it's no match for our little fella! Pity he couldn't share my waffles with caramelized banana and maple! YUM! {licking lips!} Though they didn't give me enough maple syrup. That's my least fave thing about ordering waffles for breakfast, they seem to feel it is ok to put the maple syrup on for you, not like with pancakes where they put it in a jug on the side. Where's my jug people! I need to drown these babies!The architecture of the houses in Auckland is just gorgeous. I do love a beautiful federation style home, and they have HEAPS of them. They love building with timber in NZ, and they aren't afraid of an interesting architectural detail like a bay window or whole bay-room! I didn't actually take many pics of the houses cos, honestly, they just sit on my computer and I never look at them again, but I've got plenty of mental pics of their gorgeous houses for whenever I get to have my own! These are just 2 houses near where we parked our car at Mt Eden. So beautiful!Tally Ho, and it was back in the car and on to our B&B at Rotorua (after a brief shopping trip at a new centre at Hamilton called Te Awa. Worth the visit!). Our B&B was called Westminster Lodge and was set high up in the hills above Rotorua, and consequently, above the stink that is the volcanic activity! Believe me, it stinks. It stinks real bad! Not sure why it was sooo stinky when we were there, but it was!
The B&B was recommended by Mum and Dad, and it was a lovely house set on a little farm in the hills with the most amazing manicured gardens! Will said it felt like he was in "Escape to the Country!" We did enjoy our stay there too. And it had spectacular views of the sunrise over Rotorua!Here is Jai and I in their garden, in shadow form anyway! And here is Jaimeson enjoying a little play on their soft and springy grass!We visited their miniature cows in the top paddock, and although Jaimeson loves his toy cow and loves his musical animal book where his fave is the cow, he HATED the cows in real life! He got all nervous and furrowed his brow and kept squeeking "huh, huh, huh!" cos he wanted to get away! Even when you moo'ed at him afterwards he would go "huh huh huh" nervously again! Oh NO! I've bread a city kid! LOL!
Are you still reading? Give yourself a little pat on the back, this was a loooong post!! Good work for making it to the end {belly bump!}
:) C