Matakana: An Ice Cream Schedule

Ending our ascent up the East Coast (and driving through busy Auckland quicky), we settled in Whangaparaoa Peninsula for Christmas and New Years. We took a few day trips to nearby beaches and towns, and here is one such day.

7:30am - Alarm goes off. Stumble into the shower.

7:50am - Read out on the sundrenched deck while waiting for everyone else to get ready. No breakfast in anticipation of what is to come.

10:00am - People are still getting ready. Book finished.

10:15am - Depart for the village of Matakana, taking a detour in Orewa to check out the new housing development there. Auckland sure is expanding rapidly. 

11:35am - We stop in to Charlie's Gelato in Matakana to have our breakfast, which is comprised of a scoop of gelato (mine was white chocolate with a boysenberry swirl).

11:55am - Arrive at Tawharanui Regional Park and take a walk along the beach. 

The long stretches of sand are contrasted with jagged rocks protruding from the soft surface.

12:30pm - Back to Charlie's Gelato for lunch. They have a woodfired pizza oven out near the grape vines and do pizza almost as well as in Italy. There was a bit of a wait as the pizza oven can only make one pizza at a time, and as always in the summer, Charlie's was packed. 

Et voila. The classic margherita looking rustic with some of the wood for the pizza oven behind.

The second lot of gelato for the day: a citron sundae for me (with lemon sorbetto, passionfruit swirl gelato, and lemon gelato with lemon sauce), and a "tasting basket" for Yannick, with raspberry sorbetto, strawberry sorbetto, dark chocolate gelato and caramel gelato. The strawberry sorbetto remains one of my favourites, and for good reason. Charlie's grow all their own strawberries and use these in the making of the sorbettos and gelatos. Where they can't use the produce they grow themselves they use local ingredients when possible. You can taste the quality.

3:10pm - A short drive to Omaha Beach, we play pétanque. 

3:16pm - A seagull tries and fails to eat one of our pétanque balls (the cochonnet - the little wooden one thrown first). 

3:41pm - Yannick's dad wins the game (no surprises there) and we all read or nap on the beach. Napping on the beach is one of my most enjoyed pasttimes, so much that Yannick's brother remarked "Necia's passed out again". 

4:20pm Returning to Matakana (where one might find these beautiful public toilets), we once again visited Charlie's Gelato. Are you surprised? Because you shouldn't be, and indeed wouldn't be if you have tasted it for yourself. Here we had an afternoon snack of 2 more scoops of gelato, bringing the totals to Necia - 6 scoops and Yannick - 7 scoops. Good effort, I think. (If you're curious, our final scoops were mango and strawberry sorbetto, and cider and feijoa respectively.)