At home, I dump my French Pressed coffee grinds into the garden. Wouldn’t it be great if I could grow a coffee tree 😂​​🤣​🤣​ ? After all, I’ve dumped enough coffee over the years.

I never used to dump my grinds outside. I always thought that because I was using a lot of water to rinse them down the drain, that’d be enough… until we had to get our kitchen sink’s drain replaced – not because of the coffee! – and I saw just how much coffee still stays trapped in the piping. Wow! Lots!

So now I empty and rinse my coffee grinds into the garden.

I gotta say I felt very self conscious swirling out my little French Press in Te Papa’s carpark, with all the commuters walking, scooting, cycling and running past me. Maybe they weren’t paying me one iota of attention …? Who knows…? I did feel very conspicuous though.

Which is how the Nespresso machine thought is starting to gain more traction in my head… For two main reasons.

• No risk of coffee grinds entering our van’s grey water system
• My coffee per-cup consumption would be reduced

For now though, on this Adventure, it’s about me:

• getting over myself when I empty the grinds, or
• going without my morning coffee, or
• buying coffee from a cafe.

I’ll start with the first one first.

Conference Day 2 of 3

These two quotes particularly caught my attention in the first-up plenary session: Learnings from Australasian Sport by Raelene Castle, ONZM.

We missed out on attending the Awards Presentations – we arrived too late and it was full 🥺 but did attend the Gala Dinner.

Which wasn’t really a “gala” – as in black-tie formal – which we’d both packed for. It was more like a flashed-up Happy Hour where the sponsors and exhibitors were able to interact more with the delegates. Fortunately, I’d found out ahead of time and we didn’t get dressed up gala-style.

Even though 2025 is Chocolate-Block Free for me, I game myself carte blanche permission and told myself it was absolutely okay to indulge in molten chocolate!

Lunchtime Walk – Dry but Wild! – #1,377

Freedom Camping – Te Papa Museum

Yes – it is legal! Thankfully Wellington City Council has set up two Freedom Camping spots in the CBD. The carpark (in designated places only) at Te Papa Museum is one of them. The other location is Evans Bay Marina.

It’s $30 for 24 hours at Te Papa – paid online via an app; and free at Evans Bay.

We’ve chosen Te Papa because it means Alan doesn’t need to drive me anywhere and/or I don’t need to catch a bus, to get to the conference. I can just walk because it’s virtually across the road.

Alan’s Adventures Today

Alan got the door fixed by the Dethleffs Service Agent in Plimmerton and then spent some time in one of his Happy Places: Southwards Car Museum.

He got to talking to one of the guys at Southwards about a Mercedes Benz currently for sale in Germany for something like Four Million Euros – which is close to Seven Point Seven Million New Zealand Dollars (caps added for emphasis) – which is the same model as one at Southwards – wow!