Fresh paua from Tuhua, raw fish from Pahoia Point - done the Tahitian way, flounder from the foreshores of Te Puna and succulent snapper, caught only hours before, right out in front of where we were eating them - all seasoned with secret Balinese herbs then cooked on the barbie.
Food fragrances to die for and capable of winning any cooking contest.
Kai time on the beach at Omokoroa and it had the locals drooling like an audience walking out of a Fifty Shades movie - well, at least those who were hungry for that kind of kai.
It was a Mediterranean menu done Maori style that was fit for a king and that day I felt a little like one.
As an author, when you turn 60 a hundred titles run through your head about what you would call the book to mark the occasion.
60 Shades of Grey is the obvious as is Hair Today - Gone Tomorrow and down the track 10 years after, it could be Seventy Summers of Loving, Laughter and Learning.
And if the privilege of old age allows that I get to go all the way, the cover in three decades' time could read Ninety and Not Out.
But right now each day comes as a bonus and the chances of me making a century are about the same as the English cricket team winning the World Cup.
I must be mellowing into the sunset years of life as my choice of movies and books to read at 60 have not come close to picking up or paying out for a 50-plus experience.
Especially when right next door is what I consider to be one of the all-time best movies in The Imitation Game.
If I were to wander into a slightly shady movie, it would be one with a Kiwi-as title - 50 Sheilas from Greymouth.
I guess I come from a generation that was spoiled by the movie 9 Weeks back in the '80s, when Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke were hotter than hangi stones together.
A movie that I hope like hell will not need to be made, is the horror movie being scripted, as we speak, up in Auckland - 50 Fruit Flies of Grey Lynn - and yesterday as we stood in silence remembering the almost 50 months of shaking the people of Otoutahi (Christchurch) have had to endure.
One thing is for certain, we all face the future not knowing where we will be on our next birthday, or who we will be sharing it with in five or 50 years' time. Here today - gone tomorrow, it is all a bonus when you reach 60.
60 Shades of She'll Be Right will do me as a title for the next decade, and if the same faces show up for my birthday on the beach at Omokoroa in 2025, I will be happier than a headline in six weeks' time that reads 50 Wickets of World Cup Cricket by a winning Black Caps team.
-broblack@xtra.co.nz
Tommy Wilson is a best selling author and local writer.
