Yasmin went back to Melbourne today and we decided to bring her to the airport so that we could see the giant Gollum statue that Weta Workshop has installed. Tina and Brendan were okay with us borrowing the car once more so we picked Yasmin up at Nomads with all her luggage.

It was enough time to go and grab some lunch before driving to the airport. The original plan was to show her the Burger place at Lyall Bay that has all the vegetarian burgers but when we arrived, the trailer was gone. A quick check on the internet confirmed that the place was closed (and thus gone) and will re-open on November 11th. *sigh*

With no recommendation left, we drove along the parade for a bit until we saw a cafe: Maranui Cafe. It looked quite cozy from the outside so we went up the stairs…and were quite overwhelmed by how busy the place was. A one room cafe with a view on the ocean, buzzing with voices and we even had to wait to be seated. Anyhow, I can now only recommend the place: http://www.maranuicafe.co.nz/

It’s made to look like the swinging 50’s with the appropriate music and all. Very cool. =) Also, the food was really good although our order only consisted of ‘snacks’. I ordered avocado-tomato-toast and Flo super-steamed mussels. Yum, yum, yum.

Then we drove to the airport and looked at Gollum. My pictures didn’t turn out too well as my little brick seemed to struggle with the light situation but Yasmin will send us a couple more pics that she took, including one of us both with the statue.