A good selection of cheeses, breads, fruit, yogurt and muesli today. Only one of us opted for an additional cooked option of muffin with poached egg, cheese and Champagne ham. We needed Flossie's help to exit Auckland, and managed to only go wrong once, involving another tour around the block to ensure we were in the right lane this time - she had warned us to keep left, but we didn't keep left enough initially.
Decided we would take a more scenic route than just the SH1 freeway. As always we like to see the sea, so headed off towards the Coramandel peninsula area, with the intention of turning south along the Bay of Plenty once we hit the coast. We stopped briefly in Ngatea and saw a whole stream of vintage cars, from around the 1950's, passing by. Lots were like American trucks but there was also a. Vauxhall Wyverne - the first car I remember us having when I was little.
A steady drive brought us to Waihi, stopping alongside dunes and a beach we went for a short stroll. Lovely. The sun had made an appearance but it was still windy and cold.
Can you spot Eric contemplating the eroding foredune cliff.
A wide selection of shells were noted.
Lots of goldfinch, swallows and skylarks about.
A 4km detour along the Minden Road took us to a lookout point with views over The Bay of Plenty.
Captain Cook apparently named it the Bay of Plenty because of the plentiful fruits that were found there. Its Maori name is Te Moana-a-Toi. The area is still famous for it's fruit, with large areas taken over by Kiwi fruit farms. These have very very tall screening hedges of what appear to be Leylandii trees - about 50 or 60ft high but only about 1ft in depth. I guess they are there for shelter, and perhaps to make a sort of walled garden with its own micro-climate.
On to Mount Maunganui, an extinct volcano (the big sticky up bit as seen from the lookout in photo above) - it's a geographical formation known as a Tombolo - and to some more dunes behind the beach.
Eric looks approvingly at the structure of the foredunes here.
Some of the plants found further back in the dunes.
After a walk around the beaches surrounding Mount Maunganui, followed by coffee and a (shared) cake, we strolled back to the car along the wooden promenade.
We passed another Tsunami Evacuation advice notice. It says that after an earthquake you are likely to have 50min to reach higher ground before a Tsunami could hit. Having looked at Mount Maunganui I'm not sure I'd make it to the top of it in that time.
Some views of the beaches.
Having wrapped up warm because of the wind, we now had to take layers off, as out of the wind the sun was very hot. A delightful time was had by all. Dragging ourselves away from the sun-drenched sands we headed on to Rotorua and our next stop for the night.
The B&B is a little way out of the city, but in a very pretty setting, with cherry trees lining the roads and the driveway. There's a view over to Rotorua Lake as well. This time our hosts have a dog, but it is a Golden Retriever, who decided to relieve himself (or make his mark) against the car bumper - we were on his territory after all!
After another cup of tea and a introduction to the Rotorua area by our hosts, we headed into the city...and the smell. Although we had been warned about the sulphurous fumes, we had forgotten. A walk along the waterfront was not too pungent,
and we also saw some new ducks - New Zealand Scaup, also known as Black Teal.
Gulls and Black Swans were also abundant.
Luckily our dinner venue did not seem to suffer too much from noxious fumes. A drive through Government Gardens brought further views of the lake and steaming rocks, plus that unmistakable odour.
We may attempt the walkway amongst the volcanic rocks tomorrow, when we have a hankie to press to our noses.