How awesome was it of the New Zealand Tattoo and Art Festival to schedule everything for the weekend just before my birthday?
I KNOW!! Thanks guys!

The last post I wrote was partly inspired by this last weekend – the photograph was taken on the west coast shores of New Plymouth, on the board walk that stretches 6km between the city and the sea.
It was also inspired by a weekend that didn’t quite turn out like I expected but in some ways was even better.

I took Friday off work (as a side note, I totally recommend having Fridays off – if I could do 4 x 10hr days …. oh yes I would!)
I hooned through to Hamilton and grabbed Ken and we took off on our roadtrip to the ‘Naki in the sunshine. We sang songs and took silly photographs and noticed that there were a few of our friends posting similar photographs on Facebook.

We checked in to our little hotel down in the city centre and then headed out to find something for dinner. I decided I wanted steak so we ended up at an interesting little place that we had seen as we were driving in.

Divine Steak House is right next door to Hell Pizza on Leach Street.
We decided to go there as we wanted a change from Lonestar; we’ve been a couple of times this year and even though I know its pretty good meat for a pretty good price, change is good. I have to admit – I thought from the exterior and the location that Divine would be on par but I was wrong!
It was pretty quiet inside. With a few more people, I am sure the layout would be a little more forgiving. Don’t look up or out the windows at the cars parked almost up against the tables. Do however look at the menu! Slightly more expensive than Lonestar but much more choice when what you want is steak. The waitress told us it would be 30 minutes and I was horrified. But we didn’t have anywhere to be – and when the steaks came … oh boy. Totally worth the wait. I’ll go back.

The next morning we had breakfast all arranged so we hung out, ate warmed pull apart bread and then headed downstairs to go to the Tattoo Festival. But the car wouldn’t start. Somehow, with only one of us driving (not me), WE had managed to leave OUR lights on. Magic bloody car that seats two drivers!!

Shit happens though. We grabbed a cab and headed up to the TSB Showgrounds and joined the crowd already gathered to wait for the doors to open. I was a little surprised that they didn’t have entry organised for those of us that had appointments with artists.

Once we got inside, I walked around to find Destroy Troy who I had my birthday tattoo appointment with.

This had been on my wishlist for ages! I’ve been following him on Instagram and I just loved his style. I convinced him to take me as an appointment at the show and I was just so excited for weeks before hand.

Ken had the camera and was taking some progress photographs and photographs of the show for me.
Unfortunately – he also had the car with the flat battery to sort out. So after an hour or so, he took off to do that and most of the rest of the photographs that I have are Instagrams.

These two gorgeous people below are my friend Gillian and her husband Lee. Gillian is the brains, the wizard, the magic behind TINKture – the tattoo after care blend that I often rave about.

The four of us headed out for a very lazy sedate dinner once we left the show which was another of the highlights of my weekend.

Sunday morning rolled around and rather than head back up to the show, we took a walk along the boardwalk. I had my Nikon with me (well Ken carried it) but I wasn’t feeling it. So again, just a few snaps from my iPhone.

My boyfriend thinks he is a better holder of the camera for our selfies. I needed to jump to actually appear in these ….

He then decided to run up Paritutu Rock. I’m dead scared of heights. I stayed at the bottom and listened to him screaming as he pretended to fall.

And another funny face selfie.

I had such a lovely weekend. I really enjoyed being in New Plymouth again – its a beautiful part of the country.

Catching up with old friends, finally meeting some people I’ve been chatting to for it a bit and getting my birthday tattoo from Destroy Troy all added to it.

The NZ Tattoo and Art Festival was fantastic – best convention I’ve been too so far.

So when are we going away again?