Here we are in Ohope Beach, North Island, New Zealand, about 8 nautical miles of the coast. I have chartered a fishing boat to have a mornings fishing with my dad (in the background) and daughter Hayley.
Yours truly has just reeled in a King Fish which took about 15 minutes and quite a battle. Despite the excitement of catching such a sporting fish we threw him back as a little small for his class.
The Wandering Palate’s recipe for an ideal urban family holiday catering to everyone’s needs and desires.
One of the conundrums of family holiday planning is trying to cater to everyone’s individual wants and needs, both adults and children. Actually, the reality is everything gets planned around the children, which is where most hotels fall short in catering to the most demanding of all guests. They may not pay the bill but I can assure you, if the kids are happy mum is happy. And if mums happy, dad is happy and you will potentially have a repeat customer.
Another beautiful day in Cornwall, out at sea by 8am before the low-tide to check our lobsters pots. But no luck again save a young specimen that we threw back. Still, where’s there’s children there has to be adults so we re-baited the pots and hope we are more successful tomorrow.
A 7am chug around Falmouth Bay, that is the mouth of the Fal River, checking our lobster pots proved fruitless, although I did catch a Mackerel on the way back.
We set off to Helford Passage for lunch at the Ferryboat Inn, now run by the oyster and seafood specialist, Wright Bros, of Borough Market and their Soho restaurant, which we dined a few weeks back and had a most enjoyable experience. More on that later.
Having traveled down from Highgate by train to Haslemere in Surrey for a few days to stay with friends, we then drove to their beach house in St Antony, Cornwall, a good 6 hour drive stopping off at their Devon Farm to raid the cellar. He’s a true Wandering palate with a taste for old German Riesling and Southern Rhone reds.
So here we are back in London, again! That is we were in London for 7 days in early June, and on to Paris for 3 days, then down to Burgundy for 3 days, back to Paris, subsequently home to Singapore. All of which I should have written up by now but got as far as Tate Gallery and have been sidetracked by all number of things since. Not least a fantastic 4 days of the continuing pinot noir conspiracy with Sam Neill (Two Paddocks) and Phillip Jones (Bass Phillip) with several events in Singapore.
The southern coast of Western Australia around the regional town of Esperance is thrilling terrain, writes Terry Chellappah, who wonders why it took him so long to experience it first hand.
Being resident in the wonderful Margaret River region of Western Australia for a decade now, it had become easy to grow blinkers and regard this beautiful area as the pinnacle of the pristine and exciting Western Australian landscape. Many of you know and love the wine and food culture in Margaret River; add to that the rugged coastline, with a dash of art and craft and of course the world renowned surf beaches and you have an enticing and accessible travel cocktail.
Rebak Island Resort in Langkawi is one of the best romantic vacations I have had in a very long time and this beautiful place is also located on one of the 99 islands that make up Langkawi. The Rebak Island Resort is also managed by the famous TAJ Hotel group on this 390 acre privately owned island here in Langkawi Island, Malaysia. I had the pleasure of visiting this amazing place over one weekend in August 2010 and here is my story.
Melbourne based food writer Rita Erlich, and Australian winemaker, Alex White, are conducting a comprehensive and fully-guided gourmet tour of Portugal. With decades of industry knowledge, expertise and travel experience, and an extraordinary itinerary of which they have gone to exhaustive detail in their brochure, this is unquestionably the best way to see Portugal if you are a gourmet and wise enough to leave all the hard work and research up to the experts – all you have to do is turn up and have a great time and experience of a lifetime.
My stepmother, Trish Marsh, hauled in this huge Bass earlier this year.
So impressed by Trish’s catch, I decided to share her remarkable feat with you. As you can well imagine, Trish is not the sort of person to be messed with, having that certain fortitude and resolve entrenched in New Zealanders.
I am also seizing on the opportunity to enlighten those who have no idea where White Island or Ohope Beach is; my folk’s Shangri-La. Perhaps I am also feeling a little nostalgic and craving a bit of New Zealand.
Dealing with White Island first, or Whakaari Island as it is known indigenously, it is located 48 km offshore from Ohope Beach, on the east coast of New Zealand’s north island, in the Bay of Plenty.
