- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
My final day in the garden city, Monday, dawned perfectly clear and fine so our mission was apparent...to climb outside at last! But first, breakfast...
We'd decided we were going to go back to The Lotus Heart to try out their breakfast menu. The sun was streaming in through the window by our table overlooking Cathedral Square and while we waited for our breakfast to be served I had a chai latte made with rice milk.
Believe it or not I had never had french toast, vegan or not, until this morning. Once I tried to come here for brunch to order it but we missed brunch by about 10 minutes so today I was determined!
This was so delicious - grainy bread for the french toast with caramalised bananas sandwiched in the middle and served with fresh fruit salad and maple syrup. It filled me up for hours. I'm going to have to learn how to make my own french toast now!
After breakfast we let our food settle before I set off for a short run to stretch the legs and B biked round the block. We debated trying somewhere new for lunch but were running short on time so settled on going back to Soul Food. We both picked this delicious flavoured green tea drink to try...refreshing.
I was hoping they'd have a vegan BLT left but unfortunately we were obviously a bit late and the cafe had been super busy so there was none left so I ordered the vege burger (same as B ordered on Saturday) and salad instead.
Delicious (but not as good as the BLT). Why can't we have food like this easily accessible in Auckland? Or am I looking in all the wrong places?
Anyway, after lunch we headed off to the Port Hills (the only real hills in Christchurch!) and to a patch of rock called Rapaki where we met up with one of B's climbing friends.
Climbing outside is quite different to climbing on a wall inside. For a start you can use anything you can as handholds or to put your feet but it isn't immediately obvious what you can use. We climbed fairly easy climbs since it was my first outdoor experience but it was still tough work as it was so different (and SO hot).
Look at that view off the side of the wall...it was such an amazing experience. I am totally doing this again (I've become seriously hooked on climbing).
A glorious end to what was quite possibly one of the best weekends I've had in a long long time. As I hopped on the plane I was kind of wishing I didn't have to leave...although my body sure was glad to be able to resort to normal eating habits!
I have never had french toast, vegan or pregan but I keep reading about it. Your serving looks lovely.
ReplyDeleteAnd you are so good for rock climbing, I haven't done it since high school camps!
You are such a badass, Vaala. I *love* french toast. It was my standard diner order in my pregan days, and I've found that the recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance does a good job at mimicking the non-vegan version. If you'd like, I can email, it's very simple!
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