Rainforest Retreat, Franz Josef, New Zealand- Due to the large time difference we get to live most days twice…one here and then again the next day when we check to see what is going on back home. This allowed us to have plenty of time to celebrate Kathy’s birthday!!
After our long day of jumping off bridges we had planned on going out for dinner but realized that was not the best way to honor this birthday. The hotel we booked guaranteed lakefront views but somehow we got lucky enough to have a walk out balcony that included a grill. If there is one thing we knew Kathy would want to do for her birthday, it would grilling out on a deck (preferably hers but she might even make an exception if she saw this deck).
We found a grocery store in town and after 5 minutes of standing in front of the ground meat deciding if beef/lamb mince or beef/steak mince meant hamburger…we were on the way back for the bday cookout. Oh, we did also manage to find some of our New Zealand beer of choice, Speight’s Gold Medal Ale.
The burgers turned out great (beef/steak was the correct choice) and it was definitely one of our favorite meals of the trip. After dinner we got ready to hit the town for more celebrating. We saw some deals for a bar crawl called Big Night Out and figured that would be the best way to see as many places as possible. The deal was advertised as a free drink at 6 different bars, pizza, discounts on drinks, and other random fun for $25/person. With drink prices so high we figured we couldn’t go wrong…but when something seems too good to be true it usually is.
The first bar did give us a free drink of our choice and we thought we made a great choice. The free drink at the next 4 bars was shots of different fruit juices or at least that’s what it tasted like. The drinking age here is 18 though and those kids sure seemed to think they were good….we decided shortly after entering bar number 5 that we were too old for this scene and our money would be better spent on food to eat while watching Entourage. One huge Fergberger later we had successfully eaten our month’s quota of beef/steak mince. Overall a great night celebrating in honor of Kathy’s birthday!
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| Mmmm...cranberry juice! |
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| Fergberger w/cheese |
It definitely looked like a great way to celebrate my birthday....thanks for thinking of me!!!
ReplyDeleteLove you and miss you both! GO PACK!!! Mom K
sometimes i wonder if an Aussie was part of your vacation package and he just follows you around with a camera - just sayin. something to think about, though, when booking a trip.
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