A New Zealand mountain, a sunset and a cafe

Where were we up to?
……..oh yeah…… one of us had climbed a mountain and was ready to rest weary bones and relax for the evening.
And the rest of us were still full of energy.
(Read I’m pathetic on the peaks of Mount Pirongia)
but it was getting late and we had thoughts of dinner in our heads.

So we decided to go park up the Kiwi Blog Bus for the night and down the road in Pirongia village we found just the place.

The Persimmon Tree Cafe has a Motor-home and Caravan Park in its ample grounds on Franklin Street/SH39.

As mentioned previously, in Above board and ready to go, we had a bit of an issue with our house battery (or lack of) so the option to have a powered site was a decision maker.

The location is pretty stunning with a great view of Mt. Pirongia from a very pleasant garden setting.
There was a modern and clean facility block with wheelchair accessible showers, toilets and laundry.

We had plenty of space to park the Kiwi Blog Bus and a country lane just a few metres away meant the dogs could stretch their legs too. 
I wandered round the place and got some photos of a sunset on a mountain before going to join the nine-year-old who wanted to play catch.
We ran and jumped and giggled on the grass while in the Kiwi Blog Bus the lamps and music came on and Sam got busy preparing a lovely prawn curry.
All in all a very relaxing evening.

In the morning we felt it only right to sample the coffee and breakfast on offer at the cafe.
The sun was out in full force, it was a beautiful Saturday morning and the whole place felt vibrant and colourful.

We were pleased to see that breakfasts were available on a special kids menu, meaning the nine-year-old could have her requested pancakes without us having to pay full price for an adult portion. 

Sam definitely managed an adult size full breakfast (with the bacon smelling so good it almost tempted me to eat meat again!) while I had a potato rosti with spinach, mushrooms and poached eggs. Very nice too.

It soon became apparent that this was a popular spot.
The cafe began filling up with fellow breakfasters and the car park was soon full as more visitors arrived to enjoy the fine food and great atmosphere.

We ventured out with the dogs for a stroll around Pirongia village – see this post for my photos – and then returned the dogs to the Kiwi Blog Bus so we could visit historic Alexandra Redoubt, just two minutes away from the Persimmon Tree Cafe. (I’ll be posting about this soon)

To summarise, I can hardly believe that we were only 25km from home and yet we had done and seen so much and more importantly, for it was Easter weekend and the sun was shining, I was totally relaxed.