Beach Walk & a Big Band Evening

Sunday 28 June

This sun just keeps on shining! Glorious blue skies as Albi and I walked round the block while Louis had a swim at Cameron Pools.

I got about 75% of our packing done then after reheating the beef stew for lunch we all hopped in the car and headed over the harbour bridge to Takapuna for a walk on the beach. Turned out half of Auckland had the same idea so it was busy as up there! (Though we managed to crop them out of our pics so it looks like we had the beach to ourselves!)

It's a lovely beach for a dog walk - gentle lapping waves, a fabulous view out to Rangitoto, and amazing beachside properties to marvel at along the back of the sand. Albi had a blast chasing the ball - no swims, but she happily chased it into the shallows. I made sure I got to the end of the beach and touched the cliff there before turning back (as is the law!) So bizarre that in midwinter there were kids in togs splashing in the waves, a few adults swimming (without wetsuits) and even some sunbathers! Though TBF the water was super warm.

Back for a quick shower then we dressed up and drove to Ponsonby to the Goblin bar. Louis’ mate Tim was playing trombone in the Daybuss Big Band - as well as other music colleagues Adam Tobeck (drums) and Mike Booth (trumpet). Goblin is a quirky upstairs bar on the corner of Ponsonby & Richmond with a funky neo-Medieval, post fantasy aesthetic... which bills itself as "purveyor of the peculiar" which is about right! The place was decorated with mad pottery, funky lights and gothic dried flowers and served the food on clunky odd shaped hand made pottery plates.

This was the first gig in years where we were the oldies - the crowd was predominantly 20s-30s and they were having a blast! It was lovely also to catch up with Tim’s wife Tineke, her sister Liesje plus Mia & Helena. We thought we would miss them on this visit but just managed to squeeze in this event.

Turned out to be an awesome evening with epic music, about 16 musicians and a couple of hundred fans squeezed into a pretty small upstairs bar, including a dedicated group of swing dancers who took to the floor the moment the band struck up. Sadly it was too dark to catch them on camera, but they were very cool. In the band pic directly below, Mike Booth is on the trumpet on far left, Tim is the trombonist on the right and Adam is on drums in the vibrant blue T-shirt. All in all there were 4 sax, 4 trombones, 4 trumpets, drums, keys, percussion & a double bass 🎷🎺🥁🎹🪇🎻 (sorry - no trombone emoji on my laptop!)

Louis loved catching up with Adam Tobeck who is an incredible drummer and worked with Armchair Insomniacs and many other bands at Ellamy Studios. I went round capturing many of the instruments during the intermission. Particularly excited by the Zildjian cymbals - I once visited their factory in Massachusetts while hosting an incentive trip for Zildjian UK sales people!

Such a great final evening in Tamaki Makaurau Auckland 🥰🎶🎷🥁🪘🪊🎹🎺🎻🪇🎶🥳 ending with an Island Gelato... nom nom!