Blogs from Mount Maunganui, Bay of Plenty, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 2

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Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Plenty » Mount Maunganui November 24th 2011

After a little over a week in Christchurch, sorting my post Antarctic work stuff and seeing what I could in Christchurch, off to Auckland, where by rent a car I headed SE through the amazing countryside to Mt Manganui, 'The Mount' the picturesque and trendy beach town across the bay from busy port city Tauranga. I was there to visit Kiwi friends Sheryl and Tony-whom I met many years ago while volunteering in Thailand after the Tsunami. Hoping to get some surf, the region was recovering from a major oil spill, the worst in NZ's history, so I stayed on the beach. After a too short stay, Im off across the North Island to Raglan, the cool little west coast town famous for its surf and physical beauty. Ive been to Raglan many times and never ... read more
stormy N island coast
Raglan town view
how true!


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 ... read more
Jet helping with the computer
Sleeping peacefully
the house - inside


Up early to drive from Hot water beach campsite to mount Maunganui through Tairua and Whangamata. Whangamata- another chilled out surf town. Mount Maunganui The Mount Maunganui that the town is named after is a large bump of a hill that dominates the landscape and looks over the long stretches of beach that seem to provide endless surfspots. Perfect clean surf. Dying to get out but ribs not ready just yet! Spent the day walking around the beaches and town. Perfect weather and lots of surfers out. Saw a group of people at the end of the beach closest to the Mount. Turned out it was a wedding ceremony under a simple little canopy. Stood and watched it and then went back to the van to Cook my dinner.Spent the rest of the evening just watching ... read more


March 24 Lake Tekapo, Today has been primarily a travel day. We left Dunedin around 8 this morning and arrived here in Lake Tekapo in the late afternoon. We did make one interesting stop on the way here to see the Moeraki Boulders. These are huge spherical boulders sitting on the edge of the ocean. They are created from a combination of sandstone and lichen pressed together over the eons. The way they are scattered along the shore looks like the giants were bowling and just left their balls where they stopped rolling. The country side through to here is stunning with the mountains and glacier blue rivers running through the landscape. There are a number of dams that create lakes that add to the local colour schemes. Lake Tekapo itself is equally pretty. We stayed ... read more
Highway in Christchurch
Seals
Mr Rotaranga??

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Plenty » Mount Maunganui January 31st 2011

Well it's my turn to write, over to you Charl to check the spelling. I'm going to start by saying what a terrific trip we had to the Orbit restaurant at the top of Sky Tower, great food, relaxed atmosphere and the views all across the city as the restaurant revolved were fantastic. The evening was also rather special as we were lucky enough to be in Ackland on their Anniversary holiday week-end, and there was a magnificent firework display across the harbour. We started out on Monday to travel around the Coromandal Peninsula, needless to say we were up packed and on the road by 9o'clock. The plan was to travel up the scenic coast and across to Cathedral Cove and hot water beach,where the thermal waters brew just below the sand and you can ... read more

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Bay of Plenty » Mount Maunganui January 16th 2011

At Mount Maunganui This is just the place for a holiday – oh – I forgot - I have been on hols for 3 months. What I mean is we ( Suzanne and I) are staying in a unit in a resort Sun Pacific Palms – which has all the amenities - pool, hot tub, bbqs , gym, mini golf etc etc and it is right across the road to the beach. Next to us is a lovely café/bar and in the main part of the town lots of lovely shops and restaurants coffee shops . All you could ask for. At the end of this long spit is the Mount and it looks very impressive, at one side is the beach and Bay of Plenty- must be the Pacific Ocean and the other side is ... read more
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After a bit of luck we found a campervan that we absolutely love it.....a week ago we got it. We went to backpackers car market that was advertised in hostel where we stayed at. We found the place easily and it is located in area where there are lots of interesting shops such as op shops, tattoo shops, etc. Anyway, when we arrived there we thought that it would be hard to find something cos my husbands expectations are too high sometimes. We were helped by staff and bought beautiful Toyota Hiace campervan that we really liked. We did two checks before we bought it, legal and mechanical check and it came up with good results. Everything was sorted in 1 day. We transfered papers from sellers name to our name, purchased third party insurance and ... read more


Arrived mid afternoon at Mount Maunganui (the mount as everyone calls it) was a really nice day and so went straight to the beach and lazed around for the rest of the afternoon. in the evening i met a french guy jerome who had been travelling around OZ for the last 2 years and had now come to NZ for the next year, we went out for a couple of drinks and then had an earlyish night. the following day i was up early and went to the beach and had a surfing lesson, surfing is the best thing in the world by the way, caught on pretty quick and was stood up catching waves by myself within an hour, the lesson itself was 2 hours and cost $60 which included a board and wetsuit hire ... read more




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