Lunch at leisure and listen to Mike

This year's Garden & Artfest winds up with the Long Lunch where TV3's Mike McRoberts will speak about anything but gardens.

What more excuse do you need to put on your prettiest summer dress and spend a relaxing Sunday afternoon lunching and listening?

The $75 ticket includes delicious fare produced by the Tauranga Club's head chef, Kendall Grant, originally from Dunedin, who has made his way to the Bay of Plenty via an Italian restaurant in Canada's Whistler ski resort and work on luxury superyachts cruising the Caribbean and Mediterranean.

"Long Lunchers" will be served a glass of bubbles on arrival, then canapes and breads, followed by a buffet with choices of meat dishes, pastas and salads, and finished with decadent deserts, coffee and tea.

It would take a long lunch to cover the highlights of Mike's career of over 25 years, during which he established his reputation for reporting from some of the world' most dangerous places.

If it's been a "hot spot", Mike has probably been there - from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to conflicts in Lebanon, Gaza, the Solomon Islands and East Timor.

Mike has also covered natural disasters, including earthquakes in Pakistan, China and Haiti and his hometown of Christchurch.

Last year he released his memoir, Beyond the Frontline, documenting some of the biggest stories of the past decade and how he reported on them. Mike will talk about his experiences as a foreign correspondent , from his most recent overseas assignment to a very different "war zone" - the fiercely fought London Olympic Games.