A birthday day out

It’s hubby’s birthday today, so we had a leisurely morning, then set off on a bike ride to Half Moon Bay. We’d heard about a path that followed the river on the eastern side of the Tamaki River. It was a lovely path and we thoroughly enjoyed our ride. We enjoyed a leisurely brunch in Half Moon Bay then caught the ferry back to central Auckland and cycled home.  It was a really lovely day out.

This evening we caught the bus into central Auckland and had dinner at Kingi Restaurant in the Britomart precinct.  Kingi is a restaurant that celebrates seafood - local, sustainably-caught seafood. We had a drink at the bar before dinner. Hubby decided to try a local, chilli-infused beer, which he said was delicious, I stuck with bubbles. We had Kūmara sourdough, cultured butter and Octopus carpaccio, hibiscus, rhubarb to share; Seafood pappardelle, arrow squid, octopus, diamond shell clams (me) and Kingi burger, pickles, buttercrunch lettuce, potato bun (most unusually, hubby).  The meals aren’t huge and it was all absolutely delicious. We ended the meal with a small portion of home-made ice cream. A most enjoyable end to a delightful birthday celebration.

The blip shows the view from Compass Point, where we sat for a while, the Waiheke Island car ferry at Half Moon Bay, and a couple who had walked from the western side of the Tamaki River out to the end of the sandspit. I blipped them as we passed by on the ferry going back to Auckland.

Today there are 19,566 new community cases, with 4,867 of those in Auckland - another drop and reaffirming the view that the omicron outbreak in the city has peaked.  Hospitalisations have dropped overnight from 971 to 930 across the country, of which 618 are in Auckland. Another 10 Covid-related deaths have been recorded overnight, pushing the total number of reported deaths across the pandemic to 151. The seven-day rolling average of reported deaths is now 8.