NEW ZEALAND - AUCKLAND – Make My Lemonade

As you probably know, last month I went on vacation for 18 days away from the lemonade studio - as far away as possible, in fact! I discovered a website that locates the antipodal point according to your geolocation, obviously impossible to remember its name at the time of writing, but to cut a long story short, the farthest you can go from France is New Zealand! I'll spare you the details of the sleepless journey due to the excitement of the destination. I watched about twenty films between the 24-hour flight and the stopover in Singapore. I've been catching up on my filming over the last 6 months, so much so that I'm having trouble remembering the stories - it's like a mashup of synopses in my head...

All this to say that New Zealand has to be earned! Once we'd arrived, we went straight to our hotel in Auckland, the Hotel DeBrett, right in the center of town. It was really nice, but we were dead tired, as it had been 30 hours since we'd last slept, and there's an 11-hour time difference there. I won't hide the fact that it's hard to keep in touch with home. But if you still need to stay connected, or if you have a terrible need to share your adventures on social networks, I recommend you invest in a 4G key on the spot, as a new SIM card with a very limited amount of data (to be topped up) will be more expensive at the end of your trip... On the technical side, the local currency is the New Zealand dollar: $1 is equivalent to around 59 eurocents, so you'll quickly feel like the king of oil if you round up and divide everything by two... Beware, there are plenty of temptations to shop and indulge! The country's emblem is a Kiwi, not a fruit, but a flightless bird covered with feathers so fine they look like hairs, round as a football with a small head and a very, very long beak, which digs insects out of the ground... All New Zealand natives call themselves Kiwi. Example: "You frogs are always complaining, but we Kiwis are super relaxed...". Welcome to another planet: Paradise.

Don't forget to click on the arrows to the left and right of the photo to scroll through the gallery!

Downtown Auckland doesn't leave a lasting impression on me, it's a big city that reminds me of Vancouver or Brisbane, but I think Thomas and I would agree that we fell in love with the Ponsonby district, like, "we leave everything and come and live here". It's a sort of suburb 2km from the city center, with a mix of adorable little colonial-style wooden houses, and a long, wide main street with cafés, conceptstores, bars, markets and restaurants, each one cooler than the last... But it's still nice to get lost in an airy city like Auckland, so if you're too tired some nights to go to Ponsonby, you can go:

Pour Manger (check out the websites - their design is a feast for the eyes)!

Ortolana 33 Tyler St, Auckland, 1010

Odettes Eatery : 90 Wellesley St, Auckland, 1010

The Glass Goose : 78 Federal St, Auckland, 1010

Where to sleep:

Hotel Debrett : 2 High St, Auckland, 1010

There are plenty of Air B&Bs in Auckland too, and the people are so friendly that you don't want to hesitate! And if you're ever back in Auckland before going home and the weather's nice, I'd recommend taking a ferry around Rangitoto Island, for an amazing view of the city, but be careful, when you get to the island, take the bus... You'll thank me later!

In the Posonby district, I got the feeling that boutique concepts, restaurant decor, packaging and merchandising in general are more daring in this country! Everything is meticulous, no one is trying to be "Brooklyn like", there's a real freshness and freedom in execution, as if no one had to prove anything but just do what they feel like doing. So inspiring! A couple of friends live in Ponsonby and really confirm the sweetness of life in this neighborhood. To give you an idea, rents are higher than or equal to those in Paris...

To discover the district, we took a tour with an organization called Zest Food Tours, with a local resident who showed us her favorite places, it was so cool, I think I went into every store that made me want to; and I tasted every little morsel that was handed to me! It was just too good! I recommend it for a gentle discovery.

Don't forget to click on the arrows to the left and right of the photo to scroll through the gallery!

I don't really have any addresses to recommend as everything is so cool. I recommend the super Site Neat Placesa kind of city guide that's just too good to be true (they also have an app), and having tried out many of the addresses on offer, you can follow their recommendations with your eyes shut! Later in the trip, in Chirstchurch, we met one of the founders of Neat Places, Marcia (cool name with an "A"), but I'll tell you about that in another article!

Yes, in fact, I had two crazy favorites, the restaurant the Orphean Kitchenthe chef is so nice, he saw that with our 3 cameras, we weren't from here and he wrote us hotel and restaurant recommendations for the different cities we were going to visit, and at no time did he tell us that he was the chef of these places... So cool this Tom! I love his creative cuisine! And then afterwards, we got lost and had a drink in a hidden bar in Ponsonby called The Golden Drawn! This is where I discovered the local lemonade. Lemony such a fan of the packaging that our friends gave me a poster of Lemmy the Lemon! In short, Ponsonby, I love you. Here's a little gallery with photos of these great places... Click on the arrows to the left and right of the photo to scroll through the gallery!

Orphean Kitchen: 118 Ponsonby Rd, Auckland 1011.

The Golden Draw: 134 Ponsonby Rd, Auckland 1011.

And then we had a blast: Piha Beach! You've probably come across it in many films, including the one that rocked my childhood, The Piano Lesson. It's a SUBlime place! Breathless, I didn't want to leave - the weather was perfect... For the record, we took a van from the foot of Auckland's famous Sky Tower, heading for the canyons of Piha Beach...

It's with the : Awol Adventures which offers Canyoing tours: abseiling down mountains for beginners and experts... We'd never done that in our lives! First we had a short introduction to the basics of climbing and abseiling... It was very well supervised and I have no complaints about the safety of the excursion. Then we climbed, climbed and climbed again up a mountain to a small stream that turned into a huge waterfall! And off we went, abseiling and swimming all the way down... Of course, I didn't have my cameras! But our instructor lent me his waterproof laptop, so I posted a few photos on Instagram ! A crazy experience to be repeated for sure, and then at the end we stayed a long time drinking a coffee on Piha beach, in paradise. I'd have gone surfing here...

Piha Café20 Seaview Road, Piha...

Don't forget to click on the arrows to the left and right of the photo to scroll through the gallery! I can't believe we've been here... I can feel my hair wet from the waterfalls and the warm sun on my skin... And then before heading back to Chirstchurch we had a great meeting, Kate Sylvester !

Kate is a New Zealand stylist who has had her own brand, Kate Sylvester, for the past twenty years: it's a brand with a designer positioning, fairly high-end, but which has adapted to its market by launching a younger, more affordable brand: Sylvester. She is developing a more lifestyle offering with beautiful decorative objects too! Kate worked in Paris for Corinne Cobson on rue Charlot, with her husband Wayne. It was so good to meet them, I was quite impressed because, having only been in Auckland for a few days, we've come across her own boutiques and seen her brand many times in different concept stores. Kate is very approachable, telling us about her collections, her inspirations and her New Zealand and Chinese productions. It's funny, because for them, China is like Portugal for us; it's a way of relocating production while keeping it close to home. In fact, it was Kate and Wayne who recommended that we go to Orphean Kitchen... I think it's also a great way to discover a place, letting yourself be guided by the favourites and recommendations of these unexpected encounters...