Winding roads and cheesecake!

It's been more than a year since I came to Auckland. I was fortunate enough and got to travel around NewZealand substantially despite being a student. For a long time now, I wanted to start writing something about places and nature of NewZealand. It was difficult to decide where to start and well that's why I never started. But enough is enough. I am going to start writing as it comes to my mind, be it any place, famous or not so famous yet!

So I live in Auckland in a nice and cozy house. We have our own garden and very good accessibility to the city through trains or buses, well that is about it, all the places here are beautiful and green. Most of the beaches around Auckland are about half an hour drive from my house. There are nice broad motorways as well as winding roads bringing memories of Konkan. I have travelled around part of Auckland, Hamilton as well as some parts of South Island, which is supposed to be most beautiful. This post is about nice cafe I found somewhere in west Auckland. Much of the parts of west Auckland are hilly and hence the roads are winding. There are many beautiful beaches along the coastline. Piha beach is perhaps most famous and parts of the film "Kaho na pyar hain" were picturized here. Below are some of the photos of the beaches here.

Now that I have a good hold on driving, I love driving in this hilly region. There are hairpin turns, sharp cuts everything. Yet driving is rather safe as long as you are staying within 'your' lane! There are also some slow vehicle pit stops. If one is driving slowly for any reason and traffic is getting help up, he can divert to the slow lane for a while and let the fast vehicles pass. And yes it all happens without anyone sounding horns. Horns are considered insulting and generally used wisely for the same purpose!

During one of our drives around these lovely roads, we were looking around for a cafe. Best help in most of such situations is Google. It showed us a cafe called 'Kauri Gum Cafe' and also warned us that it would be closing soon by the time we reach there. We managed to reach half an hour before but it was Saturday and they were already moving the furniture and closing the cafe. It was going to be homemade tea that day. We had really liked the ambience of this cafe so, on another weekend we drove all the way there, about 35 minutes from my house, just to check it out. As we entered we were greeted by a skeleton and two very real looking miners. Well, all the three were part of the decorations. There was a lot of mining business around, well-crafted ambience for sure! I was very happy to see fresh cheesecake on their menu. I had this wonderful cheesecake once in Finland on a cruise and hadn't really had any close to that taste for a while. I had high hopes from this cheesecake. Next question was the drink. It was morning time and I really wanted nice black coffee. I asked them about 'afagado'. It's black coffee served with cream vanilla ice cream. They didn't have it on the menu but said could make one for me. To sum up, it was a perfect day. Afagado was really good with a nice strong coffee shot. The Cheesecake was absolutely worth driving all the way there. It was not too sweet, fresh and smooth. I have already visited the cafe again twice just for the cheesecake and a must visit destination in my list!

More about New Zealand soon! Any particular place? I don't know really, I am a free spirit... :)

Oh and this is how the cafe looks.. I gave an insider review but for an insider view, you have to visit this awesome place!

Special thanks to my dear friend "Hasanjii" for his great free driving lessons, more on it in upcoming posts...


Devendra.