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We stayed the night with Steve, Liz and the boys the night before they left for the UK. It gave us the chance to meet Jet before they left for the other side of the world! Its really strange being in a house again after over 2 months living in a camper van - and it’s a huge house too!! Jet is very cute and loves to be fussed so we are going to have our work cut out for us over the next four weeks.
Luckily the sun has come out again so the daily walks on the beach with Jet have been lovely. After a few days of doing nothing much but finding our way to the shops, doing some washing and reacquainting ourselves with the square box known as the TV, we headed into Mount Maunganui to walk around Leisure Island which is one of the good fishing spots. A walk along Pilots bay on the other side of the Mount and then a wander into downtown meant we had a good understanding of our surroundings.
First time we went fishing was good and we got loads of bites, unfortunately my line wasn’t strong enough to
pull the fish up over the rocks, however I did manage to land one with the help of Mark jumping down on to the lower rocks and getting it along with getting hit by a wave!! A few more bites and a couple of lost hooks and Mark caught a Kawahai too. So first try and we brought home two nice sized fish for dinner. As we were preparing the fish for dinner there was a knock on the door and one of the neighbours offered us some fish as her husband had been in a fishing competition and they had loads of fish - so we graciously accepted and had fish for the following night too!!
I had phoned two schools to visit, one local in Tauranga South and one over in Hamilton. The school at Kaka Street Tauranga, were really helpful but surprisingly small. I spent the morning with them helping in class and discussing the differences between the UK and NZ curriculum’s and systems. Seemingly the biggest difference is the teachers here have less paperwork and targets to meet! The second school was in Hamilton (about and hour and half away from Papamoa), and is a
large school. It has quite a large number of students on their base site as well as a large number of satellite classes. Luckily I was able to spend most of the day at the school and got to see some of the satellite classes for myself. They work as separate units really and either as a single entity or as a cluster of classes. The school basically rents a classroom from a mainstream school, employs there own staff and teaches their own students. Some of the students go across to the main school for individual lessons such as drama, PE or art, but essentially they are a completely separate entity to the mainstream school - they just exist on the same site!!
The following week we decided to take the Kayak out on a nice calm sea and see if we could catch any snapper a bit further away from the rocks. We spent approximately 3 hours out on the kayak but didn’t get a bite. It was really disappointing on the fishing front but a lovely sunny day to be out on the kayak!!
The weather was a bit changeable to say the least and we
spent a few days tucked up on the sofa as the rain didn’t stop. One morning Mark did get up early to go fishing ( I stayed to keep the bed warm!) and had been gone for about 4 hours. When he did arrive home he did so with 5 big Kawahai!! It was obviously a good fishing session that I had missed, and by all accounts there were more fish to be had we just didn’t have strong enough line to pull them in, but I’m sure 5 fish will see us through the next 10 days at Steve’s!!
A couple of days later we decided to walk up Mount Maunganui. Unfortunately the nice gentle walk to the summit is closed due to landslides earlier in the year. So we took the more direct route up the side of the mount via the seemingly never ending steps. The view from the top is fantastic and you get a full 360degree view and walk around the top. We found an easier route down in the four wheel drive track that wound its way down and didn’t have any steps in sight!
The last week has been really unsettled
and mainly raining in the north including a tornado ripping through Auckland!! So we’ve only managed one day out as Mark’s been unwell too. We headed over the McLaren Falls about half hour away. We were going to take Jet with us but dogs aren’t allowed in the Park, so we headed off on our own. The park is a lovely haven by a large lake. We walked up to waterfall and then around the lake and up to the summit of one of the hills which was again via a number of steps. There are a few places to stop and have a picnic and loads of bbq areas. On the way out of the park we stopped by the actual falls and then headed back to walk Jet on the beach.
Life in Papamoa has been really rather relaxed and we have taken everything very easy. We’ve been fishing more times than I have mentioned ( but without any catch), been into Tauranga to shop, put Mitsy through her WOF (or MOT) and walked on the beach loads. We’ve also dug in the sand for Tuatua, which are a shellfish similar to cockles just a lot bigger
and stopped at the roadside stalls for some fruit and veg. I’ve also done some baking and enjoyed being able to cook in a large kitchen - though I’m not sure Mark’s enjoyed cleaning up after me!!
Its back into the van tomorrow, its going to be hard to say goodbye to Jet who’s been a pleasure to have and strange to going back into the small confined space of the van. Three weeks left in New Zealand and then it’s off the Rarotonga, so we are heading up to Northland before getting to Auckland to try and sell Mitsy L.
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