Bobbys Fresh Fish Market

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It's not the outside image or the seagulls that entice me into a fish and chip meal, it's the setting and queue of people.  
Its also the buzz as diners weave their way between waiting customers and picnic tables.
This must surely be worth the wait, and I too join the queue.  A notice in the window tells us that they need shop staff - for immediate start - and that their food is cooked in pure beef fat.
The queue winds into the shop, and I glance down to see my first mutton birds - $20 for each little featherless brown body laying on top of each other.  Somehow I'd pictured them in barrels, transported on deck from outlying islands.  They don't tempt me nor do the Chatham Island Kina.
The variety of fish for sale is wide & colourful.  There's Pink Salmon, Red & Blue Cod, Ling, Blue Moki and Blue Gill.   Add an extra $8 per order to chose a piece cooked for your dinner.
The mussel fritters have already sold out and everyone is busy or happy or starving.
No 50 is called, the till tape jams, and I wait to pay for my dinner.
A man behind me has his order put through fast - his bus is leaving soon.    Another couple are weekend escapees from rural Mangaweka.
No 51, 52 and 53 are called and diners ebb and flow with platters of golden battered fish & chips.
When Number 56 is called its my turn to wind through the hungry customers to the outside tables.
The seagulls squawk for food - sorry 'Do not feed the Birds' says the sign and they fly empty beaked, back to Bobbys Fresh Fish Market sign on top of the nearby blue shed...
It's low tide and the fishing vessels are down below the top of the wharf. Another blue sign tells me its a commercial fishing wharf and the berths are leased.   No overnight parking on the wharf here please.   People stroll along from Strand Reserve.     At the railway crossing among a blase of bells, flashing lights and clickety clicks, an empty freight train rumbles through.   And when a friendly customer tells me he comes here every time he's in Tauranga, I'm thinking I will too ...

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