Café Ahuriri

Today we celebrated a friend's birthday at Café Ahuriri. When I first came to live in New Zealand I used to cycle right around the seafront of Napier from the first place I stayed to Ahuriri and there I used to have breakfast and coffee and do the crossword before cycling home again. It was a good distance but a 6am start would see me home and showered ready for croquet at 0930. I was fitter then!! At that time the café was in the 'village' centre. In 2009 Cheryl who has the café acquired a largeish old property out of the centre (which was a movie theatre from the 1930s) and converted it into the new Café Ahuriri. It has lots of shelter and an outside walled area as well as inside space but many, me included, thought that the move was a big mistake. However we have been proved wrong. It's lost none of its old homely character and home cooking but it now also has a lunchtime chef and new dishes for lunch each week. It's also about the least expensive place to eat in Napier. I absolutely love it and am delighted that it appears to be as strong and successful as ever.

The café with Bluff Hill (Napier Hill) behind it

The Whistle Stop Café

Safari: Day 2. Have you read the book or seen the film? I enjoyed the film. Very much like in the book The Whistle Stop Café at Kinlochewe (encircled in red on the map below) is a place one either lives near or visit when passing through. It's not, generally speaking, a place one would actually set out to go to. Nor is it on a main route to anywhere. Pauline and I arrived in Kinlochewe on Day 2 of our safari.  Although on the map Kinlochewe is very close to Achnasheen (where we stopped the first night) we went via Balnacara, Lochcarron, Applecross, Sheildaig, and Torridon: a stunning journey often on single track roads in between glorious mountains. Having stopped for a late  lunch at The Whistle Stop Café we drove on to Gairloch, Poolewe, Laide, Letters and arrived in Ullapool for the early evening ferry to Stornoway. 

A remote part of the Scottish Highlands

Self explanatory

The Whistle Stop Café 

Probably a shepherds' bothy long since fallen into disuse

The Cuillins on Skye from the Applecross peninsula

Slioch and Loch Maree 

And the same view taken by me in 1960 before the foreground was obscured by trees.

Arrival in Belforte

We had set ourselves a very easy day on Saturday with a drive from the last stop of only about 90k.  The roads were not the best and we decided early on to ignore the satnav and follow our noses to Poggibonsi where I knew there was a supermarket to get in provisions.  When we arrived at the centre the rain lashed down but Mo and I had to brave it for a trip to a bar to use a loo - it would seem that Italy has changed to the extent that the toilets I've visited so far have all be usable and even good: when I was last here they bad were beyond description.  What appears not to have changed is that public toilets are few and far between.  

We arrived at the small township/large village of Radicondoli 6 k from our destination and found ourselves a place to eat.  Highly recommended by a local gentleman we met who was from Australia but who lives in Italy for 6 months and Sidney for 6 months.  The barman (and owner I think) spoke some English and was, by all accounts, very hospitable.  We were received by a monosyllabic 'the dining room's closed'  (it was after 2pm and there were people eating so I suppose they closed the kitchen at 2pm) with no hint of apology or alternative.  It that was hospitable then I misunderstood the word.  Anyway we did manage to get some pizza which we discovered lurking in the bar behind which he was standing.  The bonus was that three pizzas and three coffees (served by an even more surly non-speaking girl) cost 7€.  I have paid 5€ for a coffee in some places.

By 4pm we were parked in even more torrential rain outside the villain Belforte with no sign of anyone to let us in. Thank heaven for cellphones.  I texted the owner in Siena who rang the caretaker in Radicondoli and then rang me.  What a charming man and wife the caretakers were.  He spoke French as a second language so that was useful as neither Mo, Diane nor I have particularly good Italian. 

We emptied the car and set about settling in and waiting for the rest of the team to arrive from Australia and Canada via a day or two in Rome.  No sign.  7.30 we left a note and went to the local pizzeria.  Wonderful pasta and pizzas to die for with super friendly service.  We'd been told that it was adequate and rustic so perhaps our international tastes are not as sophisticated as we thought.

Lots more photos of the village, villa and everywhere else will follow but in the meantime I'll leave you with the view from my bedroom last night:

and the view from the Pizzeria:

Glasgow's Byers Road and Ashton Lane

Arguably the centre of Glasgow University's and the West End's commercial and, to some extent social, life is Byers Road and Ashton Lane.  Both my sons at some time lived near Byers Road and over the last 30 years of my acquaintance with the city I have known since my first visit in 1969 the changes in the ambience of the area have been incredible.  The first Waitrose in Glasgow (and the third in Scotland) opened there in 2009.  Ashton Lane which was run down and almost derelict in the early 1970s has, since the now internationally renowned Ubiquitous Chip opened in about 1977, become one of the most famous drinkery/eatery places in the City. 

After the Nighthawk and I were re-united Anna and I went to Byers Road for some provisions and a coffee.

Glasgow humour?  Locally sourced game in the middle of Glasgow? 

Wonderful fish but no claim of local sourcing

The famous Ubiqutous Chip's Wee Pub at the back of the wonderful restaurant.

So famous it has already been voted Restaurant of the Year 2013.  Am I missing something here?

The Grosvenor café relocated to The Lane in the late '70s and from which Anna's school was banned

Pink wellies are all the fashion on a very warm Byers Road afternoon.  Hmmm.

Friday Was A Beautiful Day

In so many ways.  Pat and Dave, close friends from the other side of the valley, have had friends staying and wherever they went this week they found the sun (and kept telling us!).  So yesterday CJ was feeling good (by his standards) so we decided to go over to the West side of the Island to Uig and Reef and Valtos for their fabulous views, machair and beaches and see if the promised sun would make an appearance.  We had to do a bit of chasing but we did manage some sun.

Uig is not the place to try and get a cup of morning coffee however we remembered that last year we had had an excellent coffee from the machine in the café facility at the Uig Community Cooperative Shop which is an example of the considerable achievements of a small remote population and provides a range of retail facilities including a post office and petrol station as well as a community meeting hall.

 The view from the front of the coop says a lot

Then we went to the tiny township of Cliff:

Then we walked on Reef sands

Where holiday makers at the camping ground there were fishing off the rocks

Someone or two in the township of Carishader has a sense of humour:

As we came up to the old schoolhouse in Loch Croistean which is now a very friendly café we came across a pair of eagles soaring high above the valley:

All in all it was a Very Good Day.

A Trip To Harris

Today dawned sunny and with the promise of a certain stability that has been lacking recently so we decided to take a trip to Harris.  There is a lovely new(ish) gallery we were aiming for for morning coffee but before that we needed a comfort stop and look round the shops in Tarbert.  

We spent the time on the West side of the Island 

We had lunch at the Macgillivray Centre in Northton - which was as far as we went down the West side.

And of course CJ spent a lot of time doing what CJ does: