“Baking is my therapy, and the result is pure happiness.”

March 11

I slept through my alarm and Mitch woke me up 10 minutes before our prearranged breakfast at the main house. He wanted to let me sleep as I guess the hike wore us down and I needed some more rest. I quickly got ready and was only a few minutes late.

Our breakfast began with Stuart’s homemade granola plus apricots and peaches from a neighbor’s farm as well as yogurt and Michelle’s delicious homemade sourdough bread.

Not a jar of Vegemite in sight, though she did pull it out of the fridge, along with Marmite, for an ingredient comparison (I politely declined both). Needless to say, we were off to a great start. What followed was poached eggs and smoked salmon on an English muffin, with a salad of mixed greens from the garden. Wow. Can I please live here?

The night before, I was lamenting to our hosts about how much I missed baking. It had been over six weeks since I had baked and I was feeling antsy. After breakfast, Michelle and Stuart asked if I wanted to bake. Really? Sure! I scribbled down the ingredients I needed for Mandel Bread, the quickest dessert I could think of, and one by one they magically appeared on the counter. I should’ve known. They are both excellent cooks/bakers and their house was well stocked.

I pulled back my hair, washed my hands (of course!) and quickly got to work. It wasn’t long before the dough had come together and was ready to be baked.

I make this recipe almost weekly at home, adding chocolate chips when the kids are home and replacing them with chopped, roasted almonds when they’re not. I divided the batch I made in half so they had some of each kind. Soon the familiar scent of cinnamon began wafting through the house. How wonderful to have the opportunity to bake on vacation, in a beautiful kitchen overlooking a vineyard.

The rest of the day was pretty chill, unpacking from the hike and working on the blog which had fallen very far behind due to us being off the grid without service for 7 days.

A few hours later we went to the historic Kawarau Bridge to watch people bungee jump, amazed at their bravery.

For dinner, we headed to Nest Kitchen and Bar, a hard to get in to restaurant that lived up to the hype. Another great dinner with epic Queenstown views of the mountains and Lake Wakatipu.