So we’re in Tauranga on the northern part of the Bay of Plenty right now, enjoying a stretch of terrific weather. We had a few days of rainy weather in Auckland when we arrived in mid-January, but since then the weather has been terrific. Hopefully I’ve not jinxed it by talking about it, so I’ll stop now. In that time, we’ve gotten so much sun, it’s been ridiculous. Gas has been a bit expensive, yes, and Internet a bit more than we expected, but at this rate, sunscreen will turn out to be a major expense. Even driving around, you can just feel the sun beating on you. When you combine the twelve hours of sunshine a day in summer owing to NZ’s extreme southern position along with cloudless days and either the hole in the ozone or NZ’s naturally pollution-free skies (depending on who you believe), you end up with a lot of sun exposure. At least we’re getting our vitamin D. In spades.
Today we continued our sun-worshiping at Mt. Maunganui, right across the water from Tauranga. It’s quite a cool geological formation, with a mountain formed by an extinct volcano at the end of a narrow isthmus jutting into the ocean. Mt. Maunganui is quite built-up, especially in terms of New Zealand beaches, but I still thought it was nice.
From the base of Mt. Maunganui
We hiked the mountain in the morning, a steep but quick 20 or so minutes to the top. Afterwards, we went to the somewhat famous hot salt water pools at the base of the mountain. I could’ve used some overcast skies; hot water pools on a very warm, sunny day wasn’t the most refreshing way to do it, but it was still nice. We then hit the beach for a little bit before deciding that was enough sun for one day. All in all, Tauranga is a bit more resort-towny than most NZ beaches, but not all beaches here will be desolate and wind-swept, much to Becky’s chagrin, I suspect...
Picture at the top of the Mount
Enjoying the sun at the beach in Mt. Maunganui
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